Audible quality not in line with ACX uploads

Hi folks,

Got a strange one and I’m not sure if it’s normal or not? The quality of the exported audio and what I can hear in ACX when I listen back is much better than what’s for sale on Audible. It sounds like there’s post processing and an almost static like echo, for example: https://www.audible.co.uk/pd/Ghost-Phone-Episode-1-Audiobook/B08Y6178XD

(I have promo codes for the book, the sample isn’t as “bad” as the actual book…

You can find the exported versions of the audio sample, and Chapter 10 here:

http://da.nnydaw.es/audio/Chapter10.mp3
http://da.nnydaw.es/audio/RAS.mp3

Is this normal? If not, any idea what’s happening here when it goes over to Audible?

I don’t hear the damage you describe on audible.co.uk - ‘Ghost Phone’ sample. We note that in the US, that link is re-directed to audible.com. You have to pay attention. The UK link is available.

MP3 submission to Audible is at 192 Quality MP3 which, given a mono and not stereo submission is far higher quality than anything you would produce for personal listening while running on the beach. I assume they intend on resampling to lower qualities for actual sale.

Also, they’re a business and they have to store these things. A 192 quality MP3 is a lot easier/cheaper to store than a perfect quality WAV, for one example.

I don’t remember where I saw it, but there was a post from someone who claimed to be “cleaning up” audiobook submissions for Audible. That would be scary because it’s not possible to do that and maintain 192 compression quality. Maybe he’s the reason the submission quality is so high in the first place.

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Koz