We surf the net with our eyes, ears and fingers. Eyes offer the largest conduit and while podcasting and audio books just use ears, the ears are best suited for hands-free operation. In addition -- a big plus -- we think better when active because more blood gets to our heads. Also, listening at faster speeds causes a listener to focus more intently on what's being said. Listening at normal speed is then like watching football played at a walking pace.

Podcast playback is a process that can be adjusted for speed and pitch correction to prevent the chipmonk effect. 

You should know that automatic pitch control does exist, just not on portable players. The Windows Media Player is the gold standard in this area. A right click on a running file in the Media Player brings up a menu with Enhancements that opens another menu with speed control that does automatically correct and does this easily up to twice the normal speed.    Read More