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Tips for maximising your Audible subscription.

1. Do not spend your credit immediately as frequently they have 2for1 deals, for which you can use your credit.
2. Frequent other offers, 50% off or £3 sale, usually many hundreds of titles included.
3. Check there daily offer, a book for £1.99 - £2.99
4. Many books are available for free, these are often described as podcasts, but are chapters of audiobooks - The Alien series is available like this for example.
5. Buy extra credits when available, 3 for £18. Save them and use them in the 2for1 deals, ie. 6 audiobooks for £18!
6. Offers when you cancel are often 3 month for half price or 1 free credit or similar. You can do this multiple times.
7. 12 months after leaving, you are able to use new offers to re-subscribe, my latest was 3 months for 99p!

Thanks very much for the tip !
I have a stupid question, what happened after you've cancelled the free trial ? Can we still read the file through the audible app ?
I see that's an aax file, any chance to convert it as mp3 or FLAC ?

maxwilbury wrote: ↑Sat May 29, 2021 4:25 pm Thanks very much for the tip !
I have a stupid question, what happened after you've cancelled the free trial ? Can we still read the file through the audible app ?
I see that's an aax file, any chance to convert it as mp3 or FLAC ?

Yes, you keep access to them after you leave, the phone apps continue to work too. AAX is an encrypted AAC file, probably not wise to discuss it here apart from to confirm that there are free tools available to convert them. You can convert them to mp3 or leave them as aac. I would not convert them to flac, unless you really had to as it would be a waste of space. My only criticism of Audible is the low bitrate they use, anything from 32kbps and 256kbs, with most files being 64kps or 128kbs. The low bitrates are ok for voice only audio books but for dramas, it is way too low. I have returned a few because of this.

Lord Reith wrote: ↑Sat May 29, 2021 1:31 am Sorry I meant 43 hours yes. Definitely worth listening to for the price, which is $0!

There is only one version of the audio which is the standard edition of the book (43 hours). The US site for Audible has what appears to be two different versions of the audiobook but they are in fact the same (although one is three times the price) going by the comments. The other one has an extra publisher copyright in 2015, maybe that is why the cover is different. This is the version available in other countries.

I actually contacted Mark a few months ago, asking about the possibility of an Extended Edition audiobook of Tune In and he suggested that it would ultimately be the publisher's decision to do so, and not his. Plus, he said that he wouldn't have the time for the distraction it would cause him. Understandable, since he's presumably busy working on Volume 2!

Phil_Lip wrote: ↑Sat May 29, 2021 4:56 pm

maxwilbury wrote: ↑Sat May 29, 2021 4:25 pm Thanks very much for the tip !
I have a stupid question, what happened after you've cancelled the free trial ? Can we still read the file through the audible app ?
I see that's an aax file, any chance to convert it as mp3 or FLAC ?

Yes, you keep access to them after you leave, the phone apps continue to work too. AAX is an encrypted AAC file, probably not wise to discuss it here apart from to confirm that there are free tools available to convert them. You can convert them to mp3 or leave them as aac. I would not convert them to flac, unless you really had to as it would be a waste of space. My only criticism of Audible is the low bitrate they use, anything from 32kbps and 256kbs, with most files being 64kps or 128kbs. The low bitrates are ok for voice only audio books but for dramas, it is way too low. I have returned a few because of this.

Thanks very much Phil Lip for the very thorough explanation. Very interesting. Thanks very much.
I've done it now, quite impressive and vertiginous to hold this now as a 1,2GB file : 43 hours indeed.

Thanks again.

And don't forget to support your local library. Thousands of free audiobooks, ebooks and e-magazines. It saves me several hundred £ each year. Ok, not much Beatle content but I regularly read Mojo, Uncut, Classic Rock, Guitar Player and computer & motorbike mags etc. And we all have other interests apart from the fab 4, right !

The audible audio format is 64kb/s aac, stereo and 22khz sampling frequency. No good for anything except a mono recording of someone reading a book. As soon as there is music or stereo... euch. But for a solitary speaking voice no problem.

You don't need to convert the files because the app can play them even when you have no subscription. And I think those convertors work in real time, so you'd have to wait 43 hours for the whole thing to encode, and then you'd just have a 43 hour file which would be incredibly difficult to navigate.

Lord Reith wrote: ↑Sun May 30, 2021 12:15 am The audible audio format is 64kb/s aac, stereo and 22khz sampling frequency. No good for anything except a mono recording of someone reading a book. As soon as there is music or stereo... euch. But for a solitary speaking voice no problem.

You don't need to convert the files because the app can play them even when you have no subscription. And I think those convertors work in real time, so you'd have to wait 43 hours for the whole thing to encode, and then you'd just have a 43 hour file which would be incredibly difficult to navigate.

Oh no! I hate to correct the good Lord however, the bitrates used depend on the book. Here's an example.

The Waringham Chronicles, Volume 3: Revolutions: An Audible Original Drama

Audio
ID/String : 1
Format : AAC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec
Format_Profile : LC
CodecID : mp4a-40-2
Duration/String : 15 h 32 min
BitRate_Mode/String : Variable
BitRate/String : 126 kb/s
BitRate_Maximum/String : 132 kb/s
Channel(s)/String : 2 channels
ChannelPositions : Front: L R
SamplingRate/String : 44.1 kHz

This has a multicast drama with effects and music and sounds pretty good.

The decryption tools work losslessly and very fast, if anyone needs details, PM me.

The reason I prefer to download them is because I run a Plex media server and have access to them on all my devices wherever I happen to be.

Ahh okay, maybe they increase it for more demanding audio. Good to know.

Listening to a chapter each morning has become a major part of my day. Absolutely fantastic. What a great story, and so well told. The narrator is really good too. This standard length version is so much better than the extended one. It really moves and leaves you hanging at the end of each chapter. When Volume 2 comes out, I'm going straight for the standard version, and will keep the extended one for some future time. Sometimes less is more!