Greetings!

Unless audible has changed, their files are encoded with some protection or other non-MP1 layer 3 format. You will need to convert them in order to get them to play on the empeg. You can use the Total Recorder software to capture from your soundcard, or you can use the audio editor GoldWave that can open the .AA files from audible directly and save them to a more friendly format.

In either case, unless you can download direct to public MP3 format (you couldn't as of a few months ago with my last download from there), you will need to cross-convert. Go for the best quality you can from Audible, and then scale down on your machine to the quality you prefer.

Note: I know that Doug (tanstaafl) has been having trouble with very low bitrate files - perhaps he has found the breakpoint...