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His voice sounds a bit higher pitched than the famous 90s recordings. I wonder if that's a product of the original recording equipment or format used to store it, or something like that.

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The fundamental pitch sounds similar but the tonal quality is different. The infamous "You've Got Mail" is probably lower bit depth and sample rate which lead to crunchier and darker sound qualities respectively. It also sounds like the AOL soundbite was recorded with him very close to a dynamic mic with a healthy dose of proximity effect which would explain the omnipresent low frequency.

The ars article on this suggests it was simply recorded on his personal cassette recorder:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/11/the-voice-of-america...

I saw that too, but also I thought I read he was a broadcast trained professional voice, so he might have had some decent equipment at home.

I was wondering if the format might also be a factor. The comment above talking about sample rates is the direction I was thinking. Also I remember coming across formats other than the ubiquitous 16-bit LPCM, like 8 bit formats or mulaw and alaw, I don't know enough about those to say this is the difference I hear, but am aware that different encodings exist.

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