Since I mostly read non-fiction I find 1.5 a bit too fast if I want to really comprehend stuff without hitting replay all the time, so I just hear all books at 1.25 and it works well for me.
Yea it can be. But really depends on both the book and the reader. And what you're trying to get out of it.
Some readers are excruciatingly slow, so 1.25 just makes them sound normal. Other readers speed along, so 1x is like 1.5x on other books.
Some books need to be played at 1x if you're gonna follow the intricacies. Others with neither dense logical argument or thick, nuanced soul, like bestseller nonfictions where you have a sequence of little stories to illustrate "what studies have shown", can profitably be listened to quite fast, especially when also allaying their boringness with a Geometry Wars or Kingdom Rush addiction. (You might say, why read them then? Personally: as an excuse to play Kingdom Rush.)
If I'm not too into a part I'll even go faster than 2x to pick up the gist unto it catches my interest again.
Really, it's just like normal reading. Any displined reader has different speeds depending on the how much time the material is worth (Adler's How to Read a Book gives a nice model).
Sure, if you can maintain comprehension. It's a combination of 1) most audiobooks are narrated very slowly so that people have no trouble comprehending them, and 2) audio speedup algorithms have gotten really good.
Yes, and all the more enjoyable knowing I can fit more reading in at such a clip.
I've also noticed that the ability to comprehend spoken words can be trained; I started off at 1.25x speed and have gradually built up to 2x. Now when I listen to audio at 1x, it is just so slo-o-o-w. Anecdata, but I don't think my comprehension or enjoyment have gone down as I increase speed.
This is probably just me, but whenever I start a book at 1x, it sounds okay, if a bit slow. Then I increase speed to ~1.5x for a while, and, when I listen on 1x again, it seems unnaturally slow, to the point where I wonder if audiobook producers slow the recording down a bit on purpose, just to make it clearer.
However, the fact that I usually notice it after listening on 1.5x makes me think that it's really an illusion. Does anyone have any "insider" info on this?
Especially when you realize that you can listen to a lot of books at 1.5x - 2x speed, with very little loss of comprehension.