Simply unacceptable

With the ongoing battle between Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iBooks, e-books have been in the spotlight plenty. But audiobooks are still the easiest way for many readers to get a quick fix on the go. They can be enjoyed hands-free almost anywhere, and--thanks to Audible and iTunes--they’re as easy to buy as their e-book counterparts. Unfortunately, with that convenience comes digital rights management (DRM) that restricts how you can listen to your books. Enter Simply Audiobooks, a would-be Audible-alike website offering downloadable audiobooks--at least some of which are free of meddlesome DRM. Despite that advantage, this upstart bookstore can’t begin to compare to its better, more established competition.

As bad as DRM is, feeling cheated is even worse.

Its audiobooks are sold individually or through monthly subscriptions that range from $14.95 to $31.95 for up to three download credits per month; it also offers Netflix-style CDs-by-mail plans starting at $17.98. As with Audible, you may re-download your purchases, and those files remain yours after you cancel your account. Another nice touch: each month brings a free download that requires no membership to download. We snagged a Hercule Poirot mystery--très bon! Solid search tools and a clean layout make finding known books or authors easy, but browsing isn’t fun. The 50-second audio samples are too short to get a feel for a new discovery, and too many titles leave you high and dry with no sample at all. At least each book’s page gives you total runtime, author and narrator names, and other useful information. Simply Audiobooks delivers most other features you expect from online stores (ratings, user reviews, and more), but it lacks perks like New York Times Bestseller lists and other reader-friendly guides, making the site more like an inventory than a bookstore.

And what a small bookstore it is. Most of the Simply Audiobooks catalog consists of DRM-protected Windows Media Audio (WMA) files; fewer than 500 titles are actually Mac-friendly DRM-free MP3s. This slim selection all but ensures that either your favorite author’s work will be unavailable or that there will be gaps in their catalog because some books are available only as WMA files. Most new releases are MP3s, however, so selection is improving. But for now, the whole DRM-free thing feels like an afterthought.

Sadly, so does Mac support and customer service. Once you download a book, you’ll need to rename the Windows Media Download package it arrives in so you can open it in OS X. Here’s the kicker: audiobooks are delivered not as one or two files converted from the original recording, but as dozens of individual tracks ripped from CD--right down to incomprehensible track names like “CD 01-003.” Not only is that the skeeziest thing we’ve seen in a long time, it makes navigating books on an iPod almost impossible. What, nobody heard of the iTunes Join CD Tracks command? Adding insult to injury, these files lack cover art, sport the bare minimum of metadata, and must be tweaked in iTunes in order to remember playback position. Sigh.

Encoding quality was fine, but occasional skips and distortion in several files made some narration unintelligible. Our email to customer service about the issue went unanswered, and after several phone calls, we were politely told that the files sounded good enough for Simply Audiobooks. Unfortunately, that isn’t nearly good enough for us.

If you want DRM-free audiobooks, you’re far better off getting CDs from Amazon--or maybe trying Simply Audiobooks’ CD plans--and ripping them yourself instead of downloads. You’ll lose the instant gratification, but you’ll get much better results.

Download Club
COMPANY: Simply Audiobooks, Inc.
CONTACT: www.simplyaudiobooks.com
PRICE: $14.95-$31.95 per month
REQUIREMENTS: Firefox or Safari Web browser, broadband internet connection
Files are DRM-free. Purchases can be re-downloaded without penalty.
Very limited selection. Audiobook files are just tracks ripped from CD; some have skips and other glitches. No cover art or choice of audio quality. Weak Mac support.