A BEAUTIFUL MIND

Sylvia Nasar's excellent biography of the tragic but ultimately triumphant life of mathematician John Forbes Nash,, Jr., gets cheated by poor audio production. Anna Fields's volume is so low that some of her trailing sentences are inaudible except in a silent room. Blackstone compounds the problem with a very high-noise recording. The end result is a production that can't be listened to comfortably in a car or walking in public because Fields's voice ranges from near-whisper to just above normal volume. The listener who compensates for the whisper is overwhelmed by her louder sections. In future Fields projects, Blackstone needs to use compression. Read the excellent book instead. T.F. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine [Published: DEC/JAN 01]