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 Just as with music, digital downloads have revolutionised the audiobook market. The convenience of being able to download an audiobook immediately and listen to it on an MP3 player, iPod, or an MP3 enabled mobile phone, greatly outweighs buying CDs for many listeners. In fact, in many ways, audiobooks lend themselves better to digital distribution than music does. As digital downloads are compressed to make the file size small so they are quicker to download, the sound quality is reduced.
This loss is not as critical with a spoken word recording as the sound quality is not as important in comparison to music, where sound quality can be very important. Furthermore, generally audiobooks are much longer than music recordings so have to be published on several CDs. This means that the space-saving and reduced production costs of digital distributed are accentuated for audiobooks.
The lower production costs for audiobooks downloads generally mean that they are cheaper than their CD equivalents. However, they are also generally more expensive than the book itself. Of course, audiobooks have the advantage of you not having to read them, which is either convenient (you can do something else whilst reading), or essential (you can't read, or can't see to read). Many people worry about having something physical to show for their purchase and it is of course possible to back up a downloaded audiobook onto CD.
As with music downloads, there are complications with audiobook file formats. The two most popular formats are MP3, AAC and WMA. If you are lucky your digital audio player will play all these file formats and you won't have to concern yourself with getting the right type. If you do have limitations, then you may have difficulty getting some audiobooks because a publisher can decide to only publish an audiobook in a certain format, in particular for DRM (copyright) issues. There are often workarounds if need be. Generally, you aren't breaking the law unless you make copies of audiobooks and give them to other people.
Another difference when downloading audiobooks will be the quality of the recording you are downloading. This will be measured in kilobits per second (kbps), with the higher the number the better quality the recording. Generally you would want the best quality recording, but if you have a slow connection, or you are downloading a particularly long audiobook, it can be best to opt for a lower quality recording so the download time is not extremely long.
Of course, just because you have downloaded audiobooks does not mean you have to listen to them on headphones. You can still listen to them in the comfort and peace of your home through an iPod docking station, by ripping them to CDs, or playing them through a home stereo system that can play digital audio files. This means you can still enjoy audiobooks through your home speakers and surround sound, whilst relaxing in your living room.
Another alternative is to play them using your computer. Although this is not always a good solution, as many laptops have poor quality speakers and usually desktops are not in a convenient place for relaxing, you can always purchase some wireless speakers to make your listening experience more pleasant.
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