Freeware to change audible.com purchased book to mp3 for the clip

I’m looking to avoid burning up a ton of cd’s and ripping them back onto itunes as mp3s–what are the options for avoiding this expensive and time wasting effort?  Audible.com does not have readable files for us.  Thank you for any help that comes this way.

Have you searched this site (& Audible’s site) for tips?  The Clip/Clip+ are both supposed to be able to play audible files.  I don’t use Audible personally, but I’ve heard from people here who do.

I spoke with Audible’s help line and they said there’s nothing available for Sansa users and the conversion software I found here and elswhere cost more than I’d like to spend though not enough to make me consider an i pod!

I’m a bit confused:

1.  As far as I’m aware, Audible books play on the Clip players; I’ve played them on my players just fine before. 

And I just checked, and an Audible audiobook plays just fine on each of my original Clip and my Clip Zip. 

If Audible is telling you something different, the rep. is wrong.

Right now, there is a glitch in using, with at least the new Clip Zip player, the Audible Manager software on a PC to transfer an Audible audiobook file from the PC to the player, but the file simply can be transferred using good old copy and paste from where the file is stored on one’s computer to the player; Windows Media Player (at least WMP 11) can be used as well.  (Before doing this, your player still needs to be activated using the Audible Manager or Audible Download Manager.)

Perhaps that’s an issue you’re having?  And perhaps the above method will work for you.

And an update:  I just checked and I also was able to play an Audible audiobook file on my Clip+.  I did have the Audible file transfer issue mentioned above, using Audible Manager.  And so I simply copy and pasted my Audible book from my computer to my player–in fact, easier than firing up and using the Audible Manager.

2.  The cost of conversion software?  iTunes (both Mac and PC) can be used to burn Audible content, and is free.  Here’s a link to Audible burning info.   http://audible.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1979

Keep us advised.

Thank you for the answers but I failed to mention I have a mac so my audible.com files are downloaded into an itune format of a protected aac file which is unreadable with my Sansa.  I can burn an audio CD and rip it back into itunes without the drm to use it on the Clip but this requires 5+ cd per book.

Yep, that’s the issue for all DRM-protected formats (and why we all LOVE THEM so much. :frowning: ) Note that the newest Clip player, the Clip Zip, will play .aac format files–it’s too bad, for ease of use if nothing else, that you don’t have that model and capability. The only other thing I can think of is, use/borrow a PC (or use your Mac with PC-emulating software) to re-download the Audible files in the standard Audible format, .aa, and then transfer them to your Clip+. Perhaps Audible/Mac users here will have a solution.

One last thought: And so iTunes downloads the Audible files in .aac format and not in the standard (and protected) Audible format, .aa? (I just wanted to make sure of that–I’m not an iTunes or Mac user.) If iTunes let you get the Audible files in .aa format, you then could play them on your Clip+, as long as you could find the files on your computer (I know that iTunes can make that difficult) and copy and paste the files from your computer to your player.

I can find the files on my mac “mainframe” desktop and drag/drop them in their aac format but they remain unrecognized by my Sansa.  I wonder if Audacity with the lame mp3 encoder plugin would do what I need?

Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, if iTunes has the Audible files in the .aac format (and not the .aa format that results on PCs), I think you’re out of luck there–the Clip+ does not play .aac files (only the newest Clip, the Clip Zip, does). Now, if you had a way to get the files in the .aa format (not .aac), such as through the use of the Audible Manager on a PC, you wouldn’t have this issue on the Clip+.

@stp479 wrote:

I can find the files on my mac “mainframe” desktop and drag/drop them in their aac format but they remain unrecognized by my Sansa.   I wonder if Audacity with the lame mp3 encoder plugin would do what I need?

I’m not sure if any encoding program would convert a DRM-containing file like those…have you considered re-writable CD’s though? Presumably you could wipe and re-use them so you wouldn’t need to buy very many.

If you upgrade to Quicktime Pro (don’t remember how much, but not a lot) you can open the file and then export in a choice of formats though not MP3. If you want an MP3 then open and resave from something like “Audacity” (Free). You just use Quicktime not iTunes.

Should have made clear that my answer only refers to Macs as that is all I use. The first step is always via the Quicktime Pro player and then you can use Audacity if the formats exported from Quicktime aren’t the ones you want.

But keep in mind:  Audible produces DRM’ed files.  The question in my mind is, will this work with DRM’ed files?  “Normal” solutions often will not.

The question in my mind is, will this work with DRM’ed files?

Don’t know about files from Audible but it worked for me with Apple’s .m4b format on an Audio book that was otherwise impossible to convert due to the protection built in. I was able to convert to mp3 and load on my Clip+.

Great to hear–especially if it works with Audible!