Podcast listening tip.

I spend several hours each day listening to podcast and audio books while I am working.  A neat little trick I learned a while back was to increase the speed of the playback.  I have trained my ears and mind to hear and understand recordings at 2 to 3 times the normal speed.  Think speed reading or high speed downloads. Only when listening to people with the heaviest of accents do I slow down to 1.5 speed.  To give you an example of how much you can consume in a sport time here you go.  Two and a half weeks ago I purchased Paul's podcast package.  I am now up to podcast 96 while keeping up with about about ten other podcast some of which are daily.

If the info is intense,  listen to it several times.  By listening to tons of podcast on permaculture I am gaining deep understandings of some very complex topics.  The fast repetition helps me with complex ideas.  I will pick up a little from this author and a little from that one and soon I have a detailed understanding of the subject I am studying all the while paying the bills at my job.  

Give it a try.  Btw, I learned this while studying about dyslexia.  I and two of my children are dyslexic and listening to books really helps us to stay up to speed.  (Pun intended) lol

How did you speed up the playback?  The options I have used all have audio artifacts at speed increases beyond around 25%.  So I in effect gain 1 minute every 4 minutes, but nowhere near that speed you refer to.  I am sure I can go up to 200% comfortably but can't listen with the awful noises.

I used Audacity with LAME plugin to do this.  My car is where I listen to podcasts and it is surprisingly limited for an mp3 player.

I use an android phone and the apps Podcast Addict for podcast and Audible for books.  I can control up the speed up to 3X. It may go faster than that but 3X is as fast as I listen.  

I use corded or wireless ear buds for listening at increased speeds.  It can be difficult to do this over speakers.

I just checked and Audible allows 3X and podcast addict is 5X. I am not sure about the noise you are talking about.  Mine are just as clear at multiple speeds as they are at 1X. Each have speed increments of 0.1 or 10%. You might want to try itunes or a different playback app for android.  

Thanks for the replies

I downloaded the podcast addict app, and the artifacts are still present.  It seems to me that it depends on the original audio recording and pronounciation.

I don't listen on a podcast app, rather I download (or in the case of Permies.com podcasts, got the USB) and put on a stick and get my car to play them.

I am rather Aspie, so maybe it is just a sound that when sped up is simply irritating, and not an error in conversion.  I guess I will accept the small 125% speed and be happy I can get through a small number more podcasts.

Rodger Pilkington wrote:Thanks for the replies

I downloaded the podcast addict app, and the artifacts are still present.  It seems to me that it depends on the original audio recording and pronounciation.

I don't listen on a podcast app, rather I download (or in the case of Permies.com podcasts, got the USB) and put on a stick and get my car to play them.

I am rather Aspie, so maybe it is just a sound that when sped up is simply irritating, and not an error in conversion.  I guess I will accept the small 125% speed and be happy I can get through a small number more podcasts.

I guess I am not understanding what you are referring to when you say "artifacts".

Greg B Smith wrote:

Rodger Pilkington wrote:Thanks for the replies

I downloaded the podcast addict app, and the artifacts are still present.  It seems to me that it depends on the original audio recording and pronounciation.

I don't listen on a podcast app, rather I download (or in the case of Permies.com podcasts, got the USB) and put on a stick and get my car to play them.

I am rather Aspie, so maybe it is just a sound that when sped up is simply irritating, and not an error in conversion.  I guess I will accept the small 125% speed and be happy I can get through a small number more podcasts.

I guess I am not understanding what you are referring to when you say "artifacts".

The sound is similar to what used to happen when encoding mp3s, though not as loud.  It is a kind of audio blip, and it seems to happen in the sped up audio (though not as loud as the mp3 pops) when certain combinations of vowels and consonants occur.  Kind of like a high and rising pitch squeak I guess.

I don't get any of those sounds.  Mine just sounds faster and there is obviously distortion from squishing together the sounds. Now that I think about it,  I have had one or two that have had the clicks,  pops,  and skips. Those are rare,  I would say 3 or four out of a thousand maybe.  

I have an update regarding my capacity to hear the sped up audio.

I tried speeding it up to 125% speed, and listened for a while.  Eventually the artifacts I refer to disappeared.

So I sped up the rest to 150% speed, and listened for a while, now the artifacts have disappeared again.

I won't speed it up more.  If it was just Paul and Jocelyn (and a few others with clear speech), then I would keep going, but I struggle when others with different accents and talking speeds join in.  Since I listen in the car, I don't want to be distracted from driving trying to follow it, despite my desire to keep increasing my podcast consumption rate.  I ran the numbers and was surprised to find that I am getting through 2 podcasts in 3 days, just from my time in the car.  Not bad.

Thanks for the tip :)

Cool.  Glad you got it to work.