The serious incompetence of people who do audiobook mastering for a living...

Audible put out the first 2 books in the Legends of the First Empire series by Michael J. Sullivan. Same narrator, but a different narration. Whoever mastered these should be permanently banned from doing any sound-related work: the audio has been noise reduced to hell so you can hear artifacts, it’s volume is maximized to a point where it actually distorts throughout the entire book, and I am honestly not sure I like this new narration that much. The rhythm is completely different, both books are an hour shorter too. There’s no dedication, no introduction by the author, the audio quality is just so abhorrent that even with the 64 vs 128 kbps difference I strongly recommend skipping it. The only problem is, the original version is very likely unavailable now.

I really get it for indie authors who would rather look for the cheapest option, which often makes it worse for the listeners, but for a branch of #Audible, a supposedly professional company this is absolutely and utterly disgusting. It just shows how much they value their listeners. Mind you, it's the very same with #Kindle, where the authors themselves have to ask Amazon to "please push the new version of my book to my readers", which may or may not work. If anyone read the book through Kindle Unlimited then it just won't. This is not the first time I am seeing something like this, and you have no idea how disappointed this makes me. Maybe one day, I can build my own studio and start a business that will make things better a little at a time. One can dream right?