I have to drop in and out to perform Real Life.
ACX Testing
ACX Audiobook Acceptance happens in two layers. The first test is simple technical compliance: Is the submission loud enough? Does it have any overload damage, etc. It tests the same things that Audacity ACX Check does. ACX Check was written here based on ACX’s published values and settings. ACX has no formal relationship with Audacity.
I call it their robot test because you can get a software package to do it. It doesn’t have to be a human sitting in a dark room with strong coffee.
If you make it past The Robot, the submission goes on to Human Quality Control. Again, that’s what I call it. This is the testing step where a real person listens to your submission for theater qualities: Do you pop your “P” sounds or have trouble with lip smacks or other wet mouth noises? Are you “Essing?” Are you recording in the garden with background sounds or in a kitchen with echo and reverberation?
There was an extreme example on the forum a while ago where someone with clinical asthmatic gasping was reading. They never posted back, so we have no idea whether they succeeded or not.
Theater defects are difficult or impossible for a software package to catch.
This is also the step where they bounce you if you put the wrong number of seconds of silence or Room Tone at both ends of your chapters. That mistake is surprisingly popular.
In my opinion you should pass everything and there is a way to submit a short test to them to find out.
I think the hiss sound is still too much personally.
Home readers never pass noise—the whole world is biased against them. Noisy computers, noisy microphones or interfaces, cat howling next door, number 26 metrobus outside the house, etc. The limit of -60dB is audible at normal listening levels. That’s why I urge strongly to pass noise by more, say -65dB or better. If that’s not scary enough, -60dB means your background sounds have to be 1000 times quieter than your voice. -65dB is quieter than that.
There is one other tool that can be used to reduce it further. Let me see what happens with your test. It doesn’t work for everybody.
Koz