How To: Convert Audible .aa Files to .mp3 Quickly

TECHNOLOGY | Aug 2, 2009

I do not belong to the cult of iPod. I use a nonstandard mp3 player and I hate iTunes. If I’m going to use an mp3 player, it needs to show up as a USB drive on my Linux workstation, my Windows desktop, and my Mac laptop. I need to be able to drag files over and be done with it. So far, I’ve been successful at accomplishing this.

But the simplicity comes with a price. I cannot download books from Audible.com and put them on my player to listen to them. I have to convert all of the files I download from Audible into DRM-free mp3 files. But most instructions on the internet advocate a cumbersome process, many involving that unholy beast iTunes, which effectively just plays the audio books while capturing the output stream.

I have developed an alternative to this method, which lets you convert your Audible audio book downloads to DRM-free mp3s in just a few minutes, with a very small amount of manual work.

You Will Need

Windows (sorry, the programs needed only run in Windows)
Nero for Windows (cost: $70, free trial available)
UltraISO for Windows (cost: $30, free trial available)
Ruby for Windows (free)
Lame for Windows (free)
An Audible.com account
Some patience

Step 1: Download The .aa Files

On Audible.com, find the book you want and download it. Make sure that it downloads using the Audible Download Manager and results in you getting .aa files for the book. If Audible tries to make you download something else, you may have to add a new device on Audible.com. Pick something simple (not an iPod) and select ‘Format 4′ for the desired type.

Step 2: Burn to images using Nero

Once you have your .aa file (or two), open up Nero.

Create a new compilation, select ‘CD’ as the type, and scroll down to ‘Audiobook CD’

Now drag your .aa file into the Nero. Select ‘Image Recorder’ from the list of recorders. Then click Burn.

Before the ‘discs’ start burning, you’ll be asked for a name. The default, “Image’ is probably fine. Make sure you are saving into a COMPLETELY EMPTY directory.

You will be asked if you want to manually select new file names or Autocreate them. Choose auto create so you can do something else while they are ‘burning’.

The goal here is to get the .aa files, which represent multiple burnable discs, into .nrg files, one file for each ‘disc’. You’ll have to do this step once for every .aa file in your book (long books sometimes have two .aa files). This is the most manual part of the process, after this it’s smooth sailing.

Step 3: Convert to mp3

Now, you have a directory somewhere that contains files that look like Image.nrg, Image02.nrg, Image03.nrg, etc. Let’s call that directory c:\mybook for the purposes of this tutorial.

You will need to install some more software before you can proceed. Download and install UltraISO and Lame (links above). Let’s assume you have installed those to c:\program files\ultraiso\ and c:\program files\lame\, respectively. Also make sure you install Ruby.

You will also need to download this ruby script that I wrote (click ‘view source’ in the top right, copy the contents, and paste into a new file using notepad):

# Written by Rod Hilton, nomachetejuggling.com

# Modify these to be the paths to your copies of ultraiso.exe and lame.exe.
# Remember to do \\ for backslashes, and don't use /
ULTRAISO_PATH = "c:\\program files\\ultraiso\\ultraiso.exe"
LAME_PATH = "c:\\program files\\lame\\lame.exe"

# Read the directory to convert from the command line.
@workingdir = ARGV[0]
if @workingdir.nil? or not File.directory?(@workingdir)
	abort "Usage: ruby #{File.basename(__FILE__)} <path to directory>"
end

# Deletes a file
def delete(filepath)
	shortname = File.basename(filepath).slice(0..50)
	print "  Deleting #{shortname}...";
	print File.delete(filepath) ? "Done!\n" : "Failed!\n"
end

# Convert method.  Converts all files in the working directory with
# a specific extension using a function block
def convert(extension, options = {}, &function)
	Dir.foreach(@workingdir) do |file|
		if(file.match(/.#{extension}$/))
			filepath = File.join(@workingdir, file)
			command = function.call(filepath)
			print "  Converting #{file.slice(0..50)}..."
			retval = system command
			if(retval)
				print "Done!\n"
				delete(filepath) if options[:delete_after]
			else
				abort "Failed!"
			end
		end
	end
end

puts "--Converting in #{@workingdir}--"

puts "Converting all .nrg files to .wav files..."
convert("nrg", :delete_after=>true) do |filepath|
	"\"#{ULTRAISO_PATH}\" -in \"#{filepath}\" -extract \"#{@workingdir}\""
end

puts "Converting all .wav files to .mp3 files..."
convert("wav", :delete_after=>true) do |filepath|
	"\"#{LAME_PATH}\" --abr 56 -mm -S \"#{filepath}\""
end

This script basically uses UltraISO to extract .wav files from the .nrg files, then uses lame to convert the .wav files to .mp3 files.

If you installed UltraISO or Lame to different directories, change the top few lines to reflect their real paths.

Let’s assume you saved this file to “c:\nrg2mp3.rb”.

Now, open up a command prompt (Start->Run->type ‘cmd’ and hit enter). Type:

ruby c:\nrg2mp3.rb "c:\mybook"

Make sure that you use the quotes if you have spaces in your directory name.

Now just sit back and wait. The script will convert all of the nrg files to mp3 files. It will delete all of the .nrg files when it is done with them. If you’d like to tell the script not to do that, modify line 43 to remove the :delete_after stuff, like so:

convert("nrg") do |filepath|

There are lots of ways to do this, but I believe this one involves the fewest number of manual steps, and I believe it is the only method that does no analog conversion (no recording your sound card as the file plays). It is also, as far as I’m aware, the fastest method. Ripping the wavs out using UltraISO only takes a few seconds for me, and converting them to mp3 doesn’t take very long at all.

If you can think of a way to make this process faster and require fewer non-free programs (or, ideally, a way to make this work in Linux), leave a comment.

65 Comments

Johnny:

Great article, but why can’t you download songs on iTunes? Songs are now DRM free and, while come as AAC, you can easily right-click on the song and click “convert selection to mp3″ …
2 August 2009, 8:37 pm
Rod Hilton:

Why would I download songs from iTunes and then right click on them to convert, when Amazon.com’s downloader (which runs in Linux, unlike iTunes) downloads files in the correct format automatically?

Plus I seriously hate iTunes a lot :)
2 August 2009, 9:03 pm
Donal:

The only other way that I know of to do this is a program called SoundTaxi. I think it uses Windows Mediaplayer to do the conversion. It works, but I have noticed some degradation in the sound. I’m trying your method now on audible’s enhanced format. thanks for the tips.
24 August 2009, 7:25 am
George:

Thank You

I can now enjoy my ride to work with the books i paid for in the player of my choice.

thanks
28 August 2009, 3:29 pm
Martin:

Thank You
Thanks for making your script available to all it works well
Thanks again from sunny Queensland
2 September 2009, 9:36 pm
Vicki:

Thank you so very much for the excellent method of converting my audible books! (FYI: The link for the Ruby installer is invalid but I was able to find it myself.)
3 September 2009, 1:48 pm
bartek:

I think your how to might actually work in Linux with wine. There is Nero for Linux + I have just tried UltraISO with wine and was able to extract those damn tracks from a NRG image.

I was looking for a way to convert nrg to wave files and that’s how I found this page. It appears there’s no free/open tool to do this on Linux…
5 September 2009, 2:07 pm
Tarante11a:

Hi there :) thank so much for doing this, the limitations of the .aa was driving me barmy. I totally agree with your feelings about iTunes. Unfortunately I’ve run into a bit of a problem. I get as far as typing the command in to the command prompt. I then get “converting all .nrg files to .wav files.. Converting “Blah” … Failed! I appriciate there are probably too many variables for things I may have done wrong, but any ideas gratefully recieved.
6 September 2009, 10:11 pm
Tarante11a:

*blushes profusely* Please igore the above post. The system works beautifully, it I who is the dullard and McThickerson. Thanks so much again for this! Very best wishes. Tara
6 September 2009, 10:22 pm
adrian:

Wow!!! My girlfriend has been asking about converting her Audible books to the friendly MP3 format and you, my good man have saved my life. I have earn’t many brownie points because of you. Thank you loads.

Adrian. UK
14 September 2009, 12:51 pm
Mike:

I am wondering why the files have to be converted to .wav before going to mp3?
18 September 2009, 12:07 pm
Corby in Tampa:

There are two easier ways, to do this, one free, one costs 19.99 and it is worth it.

The free way is by find GoldWave 5.06 and there are instructions on how to use it here:

http://www.chuckegg.com/how-can-i-convert-audiblecom-aa-files-to-mp3-audio-files/

and this worked, but also http://www.allmusicconverter.com costs $20.00 and was much simpler. I am still doing the free way, but the 19.95 one is faster.
30 September 2009, 3:35 pm
Rod Hilton:

Corby:

The first method is kind of iffy. Lots of people report problems getting it to work, but I’ll give it a shot and see if I can.

The second method is just an analog conversion. Essentially plays the stuff in your sound card and records it. That’s crappy quality, slow, and prone to problems (like if your machine has a hiccup while converting).

The first method shows promise, though.
30 September 2009, 6:28 pm
gornudo69:

Was hoping for it to work, but Nero will not import the .aa files. “The audiobook file could not be opened. The problem might be caused by an unsupported file format or license limitations.”
22 October 2009, 6:39 pm
Sharon:

Fantastic. Thank you! (:
24 October 2009, 6:43 am
Eduardo:

Um ok, so why bother with all that extra junk (scripts, like 5 different programs, etc)

Here’s all you need to do:

1. Open Nero, import the .AA Files (as in your instructions)
2. Burn to CD (I use an RW so I don’t waste new empty CDs)
3. Get over your hatred for iTunes (it’ll make your life easier) – Optional
4. Insert the newly created CD and import in iTunes in any format you want
5. LISTEN to your formerly protected file.
2 November 2009, 2:53 am
Rod Hilton:

Seriously? Some of these books are like 8 CDs long… the whole point of writing a script is to avoid a repetitive process. Your suggestion: “just embrace the repetitive process, I tolerate it”.

Pass.
2 November 2009, 8:06 am
tricia:

Brilliant…have tried all of the software referenced by the above comments, but there’s a noticeable difference in quality. This is so far the easiest method with high quality results. And I”ll pass on the itunes…
5 November 2009, 8:48 pm
Tycho:

Two thumbs up. Yes, the setup is a bit of a pain if you don’t have the software to hand, but sheesh, you have taken a right-royal PITA (Audible’s DRM) and made something very usable. And you got to introduce Ruby to some people as a bonus.

Thanks – you’ve made my wife’s day – she uses a non-compliant Sansa MP3 player and had been furrowing her brow at my Audible account costs.

AND: I avoided loading iTunes on my new PC build!!!
18 November 2009, 3:19 pm
Steve:

This is awesome – thanks!

I think there is a space between the two m’s on line 49 (i.e. “\”#{LAME_PATH}\” –abr 56 -m m -S \”#{filepath}\”")

At least according to the command reference for the lame version I downloaded.
27 November 2009, 9:02 pm
Steve:

I’m in the midst of enjoying my first converted book. Thanks again. One thing has occurred to me thus far, and I was wondering if you could offer any advice as to how to re-write the script to accommodate my thought, or maybe even write an alternate version.

The way the audible books convert to CD, the CD tracks are numerous, and many times seem to break in mid-word. While lame as an encoder and also many players support gapless playback in theory, in practice this doesn’t always work out. Also, some players (I use PocketPlayer) seem to keep bookmarks per-file instead of per-playlist. The result with players like this is that if you are a compulsive bookmarker (yes, I know even without the bookmarks many players will pick up where you left off as long as you don’t close the playlist to listen to somthing else), you end up with a number of stale bookmarks unless you always delete the ones that are old when creating a new one.

Anyway, with all that long lead up, I was wondering if maybe using something like joinwav (freeware: http://www.pc-tools.net) to concatenate the wav files once they’ve been extracted from all the CD’s for an audible file, prior to mp3 encoding, wouldn’t be a good idea. Gaps would be non-existent, and per file bookmarks would be good for as long as a given file lasts. Basically, 3 .aa files = 3 .mp3 files. Most players can deal with the large mp3’s at this point, so that should not be an issue.

I looked at the command line mp3 joiners that are out there (even the idea of using “copy” with the /b switch), but they all seem to ignore the header so that you end up with a 7 hour mp3 that thinks it is 7 minutes long. The fixes for this are not especially scriptable, so it made sense to me to tackle the concatenation at the wav stage of the process. More storage required, but these days storage is cheap.

Anyway, what do you think, and can you offer any advice or script samples that might help accomplish this?

Thanks again – even as it is, this made my life a lot easier.
2 December 2009, 6:22 am
B:

Cool. I’ve been looking for a way to do this for a little bit now. All I’ve been able to find as far as virtual CD-R’s to burn to are: Phantom Burner, Virtual CD, Tunebite, and TuneClone.

They seem to do the same thing you are (more or less), but I haven’t tried any of them. I was hunting around hoping to find a free/open source solution. You’re solution is close, and I didn’t know the new versions of nero could burn to an image.

The only thing that would make your script better would be if it could convert to .ogg instead of mp3 :) (sansa supports ogg!)

Oh, and if it were in python ;b
4 December 2009, 9:38 pm
Andrew:

Works great. Thanks for posting this. I can now enjoy my audible account without feeling like I am locked in to their proprietary format!

I do have a couple of questions though. My files end up having the double extension .wav.mp3

i.e. {David Allen – (62_62) Getting Things Done_ The Art of Stress-Free Productivity (Unabridged).wav.mp3}.

Is this correct? Will it create problems? Should I rename and get rid of the .wav prefix?

Also my preferred file type for music is flac (free lossless audio codec). This is probably overkill for spoken word material but just out of curiosity what would be involved in using flac versus the lame mp3 codec? I am not proficient with Ruby but perhaps I could fiddle with what you have given me to start with enough to get it to work. Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks again for this excellent post!
12 December 2009, 7:58 am
Rod Hilton:

Andrew:

The .wav.mp3 extension is fine. It would be easy to modify the ruby script to rename your files if it really bugged you. In windows I use a tool called Flexible Renamer (free) that lets me do wildcard renaming.

For FLAC, you’d have to get a commandline flac encoder and modify the script to call that instead of Lame. It would be easy, but I’ve never done it because like you said, FLAC is complete overkill for an audiobook ;)
12 December 2009, 8:13 am
Bernie K:

Rod, this is great. Thank you so much. I just started using Audible and was really caught off-guard when I realized the files were in a proprietary format. I created a little VM and installed everything there. It runs like a champ in the background while I can continue to do whatever I need to. Thanks for all the hard work in putting this together.
16 December 2009, 10:55 am
Lee:

This worked great! Thanks. However I ended up with 50 mp3 files. So I had to purchase a mp3 joiner program (which also added another step to the process). Is there a way not to get so many mp3s? Actually 1 mp3 would be fine (size doesn’t matter).
Also, this seems to require Nero 9. Would any other version of Nero work?
Thanks again, now I can listen to my audiobooks on my Android (Droid)
22 December 2009, 8:32 pm
DB:

!Freedom! My god, it works! Thank you, for this, Rod.

I have an old Sansa I am trying to keep viable and move old Audio Book files too for the wife, but it doesn’t support .aa. I was getting very frustrated with other options that Google brought back for me.
And the whole idea of burning first to CD/DVD just seemed unfathomably crude and cumbersome. Man, Audible is just too paranoid about theft.

The only thing I have to add for any others coming down this path is: 1) I had to hunt around for the installers, but they were easy to find with Google – 2) make sure you get a recent copy of Nero; I own an earlier version – and it wasn’t working until I downloaded the v9 demo (guess that means I now have to pay for the upgrade?). Thank you again, for this.
26 December 2009, 10:04 am
Adrian:

To gornudo69:

I also got the error message in Neros when trying to import the .aa files. “The audiobook file could not be opened. The problem might be caused by an unsupported file format or license limitations.” I was using Nero Express 7 and have upgraded to Windows 7. This was a head scratcher as it worked before. I then booted back into Windows XP and using the same Nero and it worked!!

Maybe, if your using Win 7 upgrading to a later version of Nero will do the trick but I just thought it add my 2 pence there.

Adrian, UK
3 January 2010, 7:43 am
Ray, Australia:

I must say I was astonished when I read your instructions (I never heard of Ultra and Ruby and Lame) but it worked! My blind 82 y.o mum has been struggling under the weight of countless CDs and bulky players for years. This is a huge breakthough for her. Now if only someone could come up with a similar simple solution that would enable an MP3 player to read out the name of the file before it is played. How good would that be. The user would be able to instantly know where they were they were in the book.
Having made billions on their iPod I had hoped by now that Apple might spend a few extra bucks to make life so much better for the blind. But I guess it will be guys like Rod who will fix the problem. Good on you Rod
9 January 2010, 7:19 am
M.K.:

I had a little trouble installing Ruby.
I’d still like to give this method a try, but the Ruby link is invalid and my Google search didn’t turn up the proper(I can’t tell anyway) file for installation.

However…I did find a pretty easy conversion.
If you don’t mind itunes(although…other programs would probably work)…download your .aa files to itunes
Then “burn” them onto the “virtual disk” in DVDneXTCopy iturns Free(it wouldn’t let me burn straight to MP3…but it would make a .ogg file)
Then convert the .ogg files into MP3’s using ACE HIGH MP3/WAV/WMA/OGG converter.
Worked for me and I didn’t have to find and paste in any extra files.(I guess the only real downer is itunes)
I’m not trying to step on toes here, so I apologize if this is a no-no Rod.

M.K.
10 January 2010, 5:31 pm
mw:

I’ll be darned, this method actually worked right out of the box, albeit it IS still rather tedious and time consuming.
Thanks to the scripting approach the batch of NRG image files will be extracted and converted to MP3 in the background.
But bring your lunch: a reasonable 7CD AUDIBLE .AA audio book will still require more than an hour of time from cradle to grave, before you have the standard MP3 files for your favorite player. Mainly due to the cuumbersome rerouting from Web->AudibleManager AA->Nero NRG->UltraIso WAV->LAME MP3 (FOUR different formats!!!).

Still it is a great step forward and away from this DRM nonsense of .AA AUDIBLE files.

Thanks a bunch, highly appreciated!!
12 January 2010, 4:52 am
Tarante11a:

AAARGH! and HORRORS!

I’ve been using this method to gradually convert my .aa audio books so I can listen to them on my walkman but suddenly it won’t work anymore!

I also get the “unsupported file format or … license limitation” error message now – that’s a development that must have happened in the last week or so. ANY ideas as to how this can be fixed very gratefully received. I’m using Nero 9 Express by the way.

But before it was working beautifully and took no time at all. Sadface
13 January 2010, 12:42 pm
Frank:

Rod,

I just used this successfully…sorta…

It seems to convert the .nrg file back into an .aa file. Is this correct? Can you help?
26 January 2010, 1:13 pm
Rod Hilton:

Frank:

Not sure what you mean. Once the files are nrg, the script should take care of the rest. I think you may be using it incorrectly (the script is incapable of turning them back into aa files)
26 January 2010, 10:16 pm
Frank:

hmmmm….I”m not quite sure what’s going wrong either.

* I used Nero to write the .aa to a .nrg, which appears to work fine.
* I’ve installed Lame and UltraISO correctly and pointed your Ruby script to the correct directories
* When I execute the script, I do not get any errors, and the resulting file is an .aa file with the same filename as the original.

maybe I’m not burning the .aa to .nrg correctly? The Nero screenshots you show are different than what I see with my download of Nero.
27 January 2010, 4:42 pm
Frank:

OK, turns out I was not converting from .aa to .nrg, thanks for the help.
27 January 2010, 5:18 pm
victoria:

Rod, I seem to executing something incorrectly, can you assist? I’ve saved the .nrg files to c:\mybook, when I run ruby c:\nrg2mp3 … I receive the following syntax error – unexpected $undefined, expecting tSTRING_CONTENT or tSTRING_DBEG or tSTRING_DVAR or tSTRING_END Thank you, feeling diminished
4 February 2010, 12:44 pm
Rod Hilton:

victoria:

did you edit the script at all? how did you save it?
4 February 2010, 12:59 pm
victoria:

I did not edit the script(should I have?), saved as follows:

c:\nrb2mp3.rb (from webpage>view source>cut past to notebook

c:\mybook\*x.nrb
c:\UltraISO\UltraISO.exe
c:\Lame\Lame.exe
c:\Ruby
4 February 2010, 2:29 pm
victoria:

Scratch that:

C:\program files\UltraISO\UltraISO.exe
C:\program files\Lame\Lame.exe
4 February 2010, 2:30 pm
Andrew:

Hope this is clear. Easy way to further automate conversion process for multiple audiobooks

Download BulkRenameUtility.
Go to directory where audio books reside
Select all audiobooks from within tool
Right click and copy file names to clipboard

Open notepad++
Search and replace (regex)
Search: ^(.)
Replace all: mkdir \1
Copy results to clipboard

Create a folder called “Library” somewhere on your hard drive.
Navigate to that directory in the command line
Paste (folders created)

Now you have a place to put each audio book when burning rom (easier than manually creating folders if you have a large collection)

Follow above instructions to rip audioboooks to hard drive (use folder structure you just created)

Use BulkRenameUtility to copy the entire path of all of the directories you’ve created to store the .nrg files.

paste into a blank notepad++ document
Open notepad++
Search and replace (regex)
Search: ^(.)
Replace all: ruby locationofrubyfile “\1
Search: (.)$
Replace all: \1″

save file as library.bat
Double click bat file

Audiobooks will process sequentially without need for you to oversee the entire process
24 February 2010, 10:43 am
David:

ok, I see ISO Recorder doesn’t create ISOs from files, only from discs. Still looking for a totally free ISO creator to try with this.
24 February 2010, 10:43 am
David:

UltraISO also reads ISO files, so could I replace “nrg” in lines 42 and 43 with “iso” and use ISO Recorder instead of Nero?
24 February 2010, 10:43 am
Andrew:

Hi Rod, great script! Thanks! One suggestion for people with multiple books would be to have your script loop through subfolders.

So in your example, you used c:\mybook.

I would suggest that the program point to a folder such as c:\mylibrary.
My library could a subfolder for each book.

If the script looped through every folder in mylibrary, then users could convert many books without any manual intervention.

Thanks again!
24 February 2010, 10:44 am
Amy@The TreeSpace Studio:

Thanks for posting this! Have you considered using D2 Cowon? I have the same thing against Itunes, and I can plug in my Cowon and it works exactly like a USB device AND audible books can be downloaded directly without conversion!
3 March 2010, 1:40 am
Eric:

Most of us would just record the audio line from our soundcards right back to file.
3 March 2010, 1:40 am
Sam:

Rod -

You are the man! I drive about 50K miles a year (seriously) and wanted to listen to my audible books only to find out my Chrysler T&C audio system wouldn’t play the .aa files. So, I had to use a small mp3 player and patch it to the system. But now, I can have the freedom of using my mp3 files wherever I want.

btw, anyway to expand the code to use another program to merge the mp3 files? The book I did created 64 of them.
3 March 2010, 1:40 am
Mad Max:

Thank you, Rod! After following your tutorial, I was up and running with a much faster (and easier) way to convert my Audible .aa files to MP3s. Great info! I have successfully burned them to DVD (for my car) and transferred them to my Zune HD.

Thanks again!
3 March 2010, 1:41 am
Lennon:

This should be idiot proof, but it’s not so I’m afraid I’m failing somewhere.When I type the command in, I get the following:

c:/nrg2mp3.rb:5: syntax error, unexpected tAMPER
ULTRAISO_PATH = "c:\\Program Files\\UltraISO\\UltraISO.exe"
^
c:/nrg2mp3.rb:5: syntax error, unexpected $undefined, expecting tSTRING_CONTENT
or tSTRING_DBEG or tSTRING_DVAR or tSTRING_END
ULTRAISO_PATH = "c:\\Program Files\\UltraISO\\UltraISO.exe"

Can anyone help with this? I’d greatly appreciate it.
4 March 2010, 6:37 am
Rod Hilton:

Change the " to an actual “
4 March 2010, 1:42 pm
Rod Hilton:

That should read " to “
4 March 2010, 1:50 pm
Lennon:

Thanks! I’ll definitely try it again when I get home. :)
5 March 2010, 1:29 pm
Johnathan:

Hello,

I’m trying to run the command and I keep getting:
Converting Image.nrg…Failed!

I have checked my directories and everything. Any thoughts on what I’m doing wrong?

Thanks!
8 March 2010, 12:21 am
Johnathan:

Hello,

I’m trying to run the command and I keep getting:
Converting Image.nrg…Failed!

I have checked my directories and everything (I did change the script but only to reflect the correct directories and to remove the auto-delete). Any thoughts on what I’m doing wrong?

Thanks!
8 March 2010, 12:22 am
Brian:

I have been trying your process here and it does produce some mp3’s, but they are quite choppy and difficult to listen to. I commented out the mp3 encoding portion of the script just to see if it was LAME that was introducing the errors, but alas the wav files also seemed to be choppy. This deduces the problem down to either Nero or Ultra (I checked out the aa files in the Audible player and they play perfectly there). If we make a pretty resonable presumption that UltraISO is simply extracting the data without manhandling it, that leaves Nero as the culprit…. now has anyone else had this issue with Nero(?). Is there a setting for the conversion between audible to wav format? Thanks in advance!
16 March 2010, 1:36 am
Brian:

Found the issue… the issue is that I am an idiot. I was doing all my stuff on a virtual machine and apparently the Audio driver in the VM was screwing everything up, but it works just dandy when I get it to the native environment…

Just to recap, the procedure is great, I am an idiot.
16 March 2010, 1:36 am
Andy:

Rod, just want to give you a BIG THANK YOU for your solution!! It works perfectly!!!

In the beginning I had trouble finding the right version of Nero. In the trial of version 9, it did not find the free “Audiobook CD” option. So I looked for older versions(www.oldapps.com or http://www.oldversion.com). As often with “trial and error” I used a too old version of Nero because the Audible conversion is only possible since version 7, here the text from a Nero support site: “The full versions of Nero 7 (since verion 7.5.7.0) and Nero 8 already include the mp3PRO-plug-in.”

Now with Nero 8.3.6.0 everything is alright!
However, the “Audiobook CD” option is hard to find (Nero Start Smart – tab “Rip and Burn” – icon “Burn Audio CD” – button “Back” – icon “Music” – voila: “Audiobook CD”). IMHO Nero is not very structured…

Thx again Rod for your terrific work!
5 April 2010, 5:40 am
Peter Howatson:

Very interesting I tried but came up against nero. I think it depends on what version one has
14 April 2010, 2:41 am
Peter Howatson:

Ruby for Windows (free) Does not seem to be available any more?
15 April 2010, 2:55 am
gerry watt:

Hello Rod,

I am going to give this a try but I first need to get nero… Which version of nero should I use? It will be the trial version but the ones I have seen don’t even look Like the version you are showing here.

Thank you
18 April 2010, 3:15 am
Firearm:

Just wanted to say that this solution worked great for me and thank you so much. Even with the $100 on the software it is much cheaper than having to buy an iPod. I use my Sony Walkman phone which will not play the .aa files.
18 April 2010, 3:16 am
Chris Langfield:

This is excellent, thank you. Just one thing – I had to retype the whole script as I came up against illegal US characters. I tried saving it in Notepad in various forms – ANSI, UTF-8, Unicode – but none was happy. I presume it’s one of the punctuation characters that’s the problem. Anyway I just thought I’d post this in case other users around the world encountered a similar issue.
PS Whilst typing, some of it is case sensitive (eg delete works, Delete doesn’t).
18 April 2010, 9:15 am
gerry watt:

ok I’ve been trying to find the nero version 8.3.6.0 and I can not seem to find even a trial verion with a correct keycode .. the demo number seems to no longer work .. any ideas? Or can someone tell me how to find the Audiobook CD option in Nero 9 or 10 and I’ll try them?

thank you
18 April 2010, 11:25 am
Firearm:

I reinstalled Nero Burning ROM 10 and no longer see the Audiobook CD, anyone know how to get this option back?
18 April 2010, 4:58 pm
Madhatter:

Brilliant :-)

Thing is, that only Nero 9 has the support for Audio Books, and Nero 10 DOES NOT. But thank God there were torrents for Nero 9.
Also the link to Ruby has changed. It would be nice if you can correct it.

Question:
If I change 56 to 128 in the following line, will I get 128 kbps mp3-s?
“\”#{LAME_PATH}\” –abr 56 -mm -S \”#{filepath}\”"
..and will it make a difference in the sound?
21 April 2010, 11:39 pm

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