What tool should you use to listen to audio books?
The beauty with audio books is that you have more than one option for listening to them.
For those of us who like to be given lots of options for doing certain things instead of being forced to adapt to just one choice, you definitely have lots of options for listening to your audio book.
If you are someone who likes listening while seated on your favorite couch or seated on your desk, listening to your audio book on your cassette tape player (if the audio book is in audiocassette tape, of course) is the option for you.
But if you have a desktop or laptop computer, you might prefer listening to your audio book from it.
It is most likely that your PC already has some software for playing audio books. If your PC doesn't have any (very unlikely), you can still download them completely free on the Internet. The 2 best digital audio players that you can get completely free to download from the Internet include:
- RealOne Player: This can be downloaded free of charger here; http://www.Real.com
- Windows Media Player: This is available for download free of charge on their website - http://www.Microsoft.com
But if you would rather listen to your audio book while on a walk, running, on the way to work, going around the house, going around the shops (and many more) then a portable audio player is the right way to go, preferably with an earphone.
With the ever expanding market of portable audio playback devices, it goes to show that more and more people are now using them, because of the wonderful benefits they provide.
The most common form of these portable audio playback devices are the normal audio CD players or CD-ROM devices. You can carry these around with you while you do your household chores, exercise, jog or commute to and fro work.
The more advanced form of portable players, used for playing audio books, include;
— Audio-ready PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants). Some of these PDAs include the Casio CASSIOPEIA and Compaq iPAQ. Both can be pretty expensive, costing as much as about $500 for the Compaq iPAQ and about $400 for the Casio CASSIOPEIA.
— Compatible Portable Audio Players. Some of these include the Creative’s NOMAD Jukebox 3 and the SONICblue’s Rio 900. These are cheaper than PDAs. For example, you can get the SONICblue's Rio 900 for about $250 from sites such as Sonicblue.com
Finally, like I said in the start of this article, whatever tool you decide to use in listening to your audio books will depend largely on “how” you prefer listening to your audio books.
For example, for the "young and restless" teenagers they can't do without the PDAs. I bet you wouldn't too if you were their age, right? The 'good old' cassette tape could not be a better format for the "aged and rusty", who would rather just be sat on their favorite sofa!
A really good place that I have come across to download audio books is Spoken Network. You can get these at:
www.spokennetwork.com?cam=ama0017
