Hi All. I'm a member of Audible.co.uk and I've a few Audio books from them. There Audio files download in .AA (.aa) format. I've looked all over the place and can't find a convertor to MP3. I seen one or two but they ended up not working or only doing 1 minute of conversions. I listen to Audio books in my car and I've an MP3 player.. They could be burnt to CD in Audio format but it would take between 10 and 15 disks each time and I don't want that. Any help would be great. Thanks. PS ( I've googled AA to MP3 and I couldn't find anything that works )
What do you play the files on when they're not in the car - can they be played out the earphone jack of the whatnot and into the PC soundcard? If so, the likes of Audacity can record them in real time and convert the output to mp3.
It would depend on whether the books are copy protected. If they are not protected dbPowerAmp is what I use because I am convinced it is far superior to the rest. If they are you can either buy a DRM remover and remove the copy protection before they are converted. The problem with that is they are expensive then you need to upgrade when they change the protection and that costs money. I convert aa (Audible) files just as Attar recommends. If the tracks are long, I record at night since and noise your computer makes will be part of the recording since you select your sound card as the source. Play with it before hand to make sure you are recording the way you want. I save the work file as the name of the book+part number (this helps keep them in the proper order if the book is broken into parts. After it is saved, I use functions on the track menu to break the part into tracks of about 1 h,r 2hrs if I am in a hurry. You slide the bottom slider out to about the right place and select a piece of silence that is near a time mark (at the top). Insert a lable at that spot then edit tracks/labels I can’t remember which. The label name is partx trackx. X relates to the actual number. The start and stop of the label will be at your mark. Note Audacity rounds to the nearest 100th of a second which is why you insure the silence is at a 100th mark. You edit the start to the beginning of the track. I usually keep about a 10th of a second over lap so I know I didn’t miss something. At least with me, I screw up the timing of a track per book. If I get one perfect, I screw up twice on the next book. I avoid audio books that are less than 20 hrs since I like value for my hard earned money. A 40 hr book cost maybe 20% more than a 10 hr book. I use the export multiple to wave files. I use a number delimiter which creates a file book+part number+-+track number. I convert them with dbpoweramp to mp3 using Lame ABR (Average Bit Rate) 40. Although, you can go lower Lame even using ABR dosen’t do well below that even though 16 BR should suffice. I can still get a 40 hr book on a CD so I really don’t need to go lower. The mode is important Lame VBR is not suited below about 100 BR since it is a high fidelity codex. Lastly I use something like mp3tag or tagscanner to bulk label the tracks for book and auther. The titles will be that of your labels.
One last item... If the files are not DRMed so you can just convert them use lame ABR. This mode more closely approximatea aa compression. Quality losses during conversion often happen due to a miss match in compression algorythems. Such as AA -> a normal mp3 (CBR). AA contains more fidelity per bit than a CBR mp3. ABR or VBR will do a better job.
