Back when I was binge watching a lot of TV shows I would do the same thing -- run them at anywhere from 1.6x to 2.5x (though most often no more than 2x), with c

Back when I was binge watching a lot of TV shows I would do the same thing -- run them at anywhere from 1.6x to 2.5x (though most often no more than 2x), with close captions on. In fact, I was surprised to hear that the "super-fast" listeners were in a similar range to me, because it doesn't feel like anything "super" after you do it for awhile. At one point the article remarks on a relationship between playback speed and pitch, but in my experience most speed-altering playback software now keeps the perceived pitch the same while altering playback speed. It's true that if all you have is a cassette deck or a record player that's what happens, but not in vlc, in the browser or in podcast apps.