fastest "audio loopback" audio converter?

[papaschtroumpf]

It seems that Overdrive has the public library market cornered. 95% of the audiobooks in my public library are only available as non-burnable WMA files.
I''m lobbying my library to free themselves from format restrictions, but in the meantime, my portable player happens to be an iPod, so I'm out of luck with WMA files.

I purchased NoteCable to transfer WMAs to MP3s so they are playable on my iPod. It's the "digital" version of doing a loop back in your sound card and using audacity to record and re-encode the recorded audio. Definitely faster and more convenient.

One problem I have is that while NoteCable offers a "faster" conversion speed, it sounds absolutely crappy (lots of "skipping"), so just like the good old audiocard loopback, you cannot convert the music any faster than it plays on your computer. For an audiobook that's an average of 15 hours.

Do you guys know of any software similar to NoteCable that has a faster (yet good) conversion speed? Remember that most WMA files in my library are marked as "non-burnable" so I can't simply burn them to an audio CD and re-record, or use the digital equivalent that uses a virtual drive to do the conversion.

 

[Pretty Cool]

Tunebite is the only one program that I know of:
http://tunebite.com/en/audio_v...ion/trailer/index.html

Of course, just buying a compatible player is another option since it is probably not much more that what it costs to purchase all these software workarounds.

 

[papaschtroumpf]

thos programs cost around $30, a player with decent sotragte is several hundred bucks. they're not even in the same ballpark. I also invested in some cables so I can play tunes in my car, etc... so like it or not, I'm stuck with iPod.

I downloaded the trial of SoundTaxi which seems very similar to TuneBite. I'll give tuneBite a try(assuming it has a trial version)

 

[0roo0roo]

hm that sucks. i only like audiobooks if i can speed crank/time stretch them. such a format would seem to limit that possibility. the wma drm strippers don't work on those audio books?

 

[papaschtroumpf]

for my iPod I transform all my audiobooks to .m4b, a format that the iPod can speed up or slow down, although I myself never use that feature.

 

[0roo0roo]

does the ipod compensate for tone? its no good if it gets chipmunky. the foobar/soundtouch dsp lets you make it sound normal. gomplayer time stretches on the fly if played in windows as well. up to 4x even, and in increments of 10%. think the ipod only does 25% boost or something, i forget. almost nothing.
http://thoughtrush.com/blog/20...g-mp3-and-other-audio/
for soundtouch dsp converter

gomplayer is free as well

"ime stretching can be used with audio books and recorded lectures. Slowing down may improve comprehension of foreign languages[1].

While one might expect speeding up to reduce comprehension, Herb Friedman says that "Experiments have shown that the brain works most efficiently if the information rate through the ears--via speech--is the "average" reading rate, which is about 200-300 wpm (words per minute), yet the average rate of speech is in the neighborhood of 100-150 wpm." [2]

Speeding up audio is seen as the equivalent of "speed reading" [3] [4]."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A...fication#Speed_reading

i find that to be so true. at regular speed audio books are mind numbing. most people read far faster than any narrator speaks.