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Comment by Ensorceled | Hacker News Reader

Try cranking up the replay speed. I usually listen at 1.5x - 2x. Every now and then I'll hit a great book with a good narrator and slow down to listen.

A recent favourite was The Calculating Stars written and narrated by Mary Robinette Kowal, a former puppeteer and long-time podcaster. Her performance was enthralling and fast-paced, so I listed at 1.0x.

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I do the same, and listen to most audio books or podcasts at at least 1.33x (this four-thirds factor reduces the listening time by a quarter). A contributing element to determining what speed factor is suitable is what I think of as "information density" in the writing style. With content that requires more digestion, such as The Economist (particularly their more technical articles), I do best processing their excellent audio edition at a simple 1.0x.

Exactly, this is a good point! There are two factors, the baseline speed of the narrator and the complexity of the topic.

Years ago, I attended a Pragmatic Marketing course and the speaker started off by saying he spoke really fast but once you got used to it, you would never be bored or find your mind wandering. I remember that to this day and when I'm speaking in public, I try to keep my pace up.

The problem is that the speed up "breaks" you. Once I started listening to podcasts at higher speeds, I stopped being able to listen to slower-paced podcasts at 1.0x without losing focus.

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