Audible.com Offers $99 Digisette Duo-Aria Digital Audio Player With AudibleListener Membership Plan

Business Wire, Jan 25, 2001

Business Editors

WAYNE, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 25, 2001

More than $150 Off the Retail Price of Player Designed in

the Shape of a Conventional Audio Cassette Tape that

Stores 10 Hours of Audible Audio

Audible, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADBL), the leading provider of Internet-delivered spoken audio (www.audible.com(TM)) for PC-based listening or mobile playback on AudibleReady(TM) portable digital audio players, announced today the immediate availability of the award-winning Digisette Duo-Aria digital audio player for purchase directly from audible.com.

The Digisette Duo-Aria is priced at only $99 with customer participation in twelve months of Audible's LightListener(TM) flat-rate monthly membership plan. The Duo-Aria is the only handheld digital audio player that can work both as a stand-alone portable listening device for use with headphones and also be inserted into virtually any standard audio cassette player for listening through a sound system with speakers, including car stereo systems.

"The really great thing about the Duo-Aria is that I can load it up and slip it into my car's cassette player to play digital audio without any adapter wires or extra trouble," said Foy Sperring, general manager of audible.com. "Audible was the first to offer subscriptions for audio editions of leading newspapers and magazines and the first to institute a flat-rate monthly membership plan. Now with our Digisette offer, we remain ahead of the curve in providing customers with the best options for on-the-go listening of digital spoken audio."

The LightListener membership plan costs $9.95 per month and allows the user to download any two audiobooks from audible.com's industry leading collection of over 7,000 downloadable audiobook titles and more than 26,000 hours of digital audio content. LightListener is designed for the customer who enjoys hearing best selling and classic audiobooks, audio editions of newspapers and magazines, public radio programs, speeches, lectures and motivational titles. This AudibleListener membership plan offers a savings of at least 75% off the average retail price for the same content purchased as standard audiobooks on tape.

With 32MB of internal memory and an expansion slot for adding more storage capacity, Digisette's Duo-Aria digital player will hold as much as 10 hours of Audible's spoken audio or up to one hour of MP3 music, or any combination of the two audio file formats. Audible offers two different audio formats that play on the Aria, one that is optimized for fast downloads due to small file size and the other that provides greater audio fidelity for those who use high-speed connections for downloading files from the Internet.

About Digisette Duo-Aria:

The DUO-Aria offers the best of both worlds when it comes to enjoying skip-free digital audio. From audiobooks and news to listening to your favorite digital music off the Internet, only the Duo-Aria can work both as a stand-alone, portable, listening device and be inserted into virtually any standard audio cassette player - without the need for external accessories.

The Duo-Aria's on-board digital/analog converter and tape emulator provides stunningly clear digital audio. Plug in the high-efficiency earphones, and the on-board controls let you play and navigate through your downloaded audio files. The USB connection enables lightning fast download speeds of up to 2.5 Mbps.

Unlike clumsy external analog cassette adapters that can deliver poor sound quality, the Duo-Aria is a full-featured, integrated player that delivers rich, robust sound. The adjustable head control enables maximum compatibility and audio fidelity. As an added bonus, each Duo-Aria comes with a DC Car Charger, so you can recharge and power your Duo-Aria while driving.

About Audible.com:

Audible.com features daily selected audio content from The Wall Street Journal and daily digests of The New York Times, San Jose Mercury News, Los Angeles Times, and Slate-- all available on subscription basis in time for the morning drive to work each day-- as well as The Economist, The Industry Standard, Forbes, Harvard Business Review and Scientific American.

The site also offers a powerful collection of audiobook best sellers and classics by authors such as Stephen King, John Grisham, Frank McCourt, Jon Krakauer, Scott Adams, Mary Higgins Clark, James Redfield, James Patterson, William Shakespeare, Emily Dickinson and Jane Austen. There are also speeches, lectures, language lessons, and on-demand radio programs including Marketplace, All Things Considered, Car Talk, Fresh Air and This American Life. All of the programs at audible.com are available for PC-based playback and on-the-go listening using numerous AudibleReady(TM) portable digital audio players offered by leading consumer electronics and computer manufacturers.

About Audible, Inc.:

Audible(R)(www.audible.com) is the Internet's largest, most diverse provider of premium spoken audio services for content download or playback on personal computers or AudibleReady(TM) mobile devices. Audible has more than 26,000 hours of audio programs and 160 content partners that include leading audiobook publishers, broadcasters, magazine and newspaper publishers and business information providers. Audible.com is Amazon.com's (www.amazon.com) exclusive provider of spoken word products for downloading or streaming via the Web. Additionally, the Company is strategically aligned with Random House, Inc., to pioneer the first-ever imprint to produce spoken word content specifically suited for digital distribution, Random House Audible. Among the Company's key business partners are Casio Inc., Compaq Computer Corporation, SONICblue Incorporated's Rio Audio Group, Microsoft Corporation, Royal Philips Electronics, RealNetworks, Inc., Texas Instruments and VoiceAge Corp.