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Ask HN: Great audio-only YouTube channels to listen while doing chores?

27 points by Ldorigo ↗ HN
My favourite are:

- Economics Explained - Polymatter - Wendover Productions (sometimes a bit harder to follow without video) - Practical Engineering (not all are listenable)

44 comments

[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 62.4 ms ] thread
NoZebra120vClip 

  Soothing Relaxation by Peder Helland
  The Relax Guys - I love their salsa
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ggeorgovassilis
Quinn's ideas - discusses sci-fi books.
activiation
He really loves Dune
omgmajk
And The Remembrance of Earth's Past series. Which in fairness is great.
activiation
You can ignore the visual part on probably 50% of YouTube videos
[dead] tpt2
[dead]
rex_lupi
- Magpie Audio Sherlock Holmes - Bitesized audio classics
donatj
The thing you are looking for is called a podcast, and there are millions of them.
0xbadc0de5
Fall of civilizations, Hardcore History, Isaac Arthur, Lex Fridman
rg111
Can vouch for the quality of Fall of Civilizations, and some episodes of Lex Fridman.

Hardcore history has many factually wrong and misleading content in it. But yeah, it is entertaining.

I will check out Isaac Arthur.

bonniesimon
Huberman
rg111
You mean weird supplements salesman?
lacrimacida
I think so, I watched a few episodes and he appears knowledgeble but not on my taste. There’s so much other good content on youtube to single out and latch onto Superman
rg111
Yes, he is knowledgeable and some episodes added value to my life.

But they are horribly long.

He is basically extending a tweet with some bullet points to 2.5 hours long episodes.

And his pro-supplement stance is awkward to say the least.

Listening to 6 episodes of his podcast is like listening to a 400-page audiobook. I much prefer that.

lacrimacida
Yep. I try to stay away from content made by people with oral diarrhea no matter how interesting it seems and actively diversify my sources. I do get back to it from time to time to sample and compare. Nowadays I am on an exploratory journey for obscure content makers, as there are so many interesting people out there the algo doesn’t show. But to each their own, some people actuply like being part of a large follwing group..
rg111
Can you share with me if you have found any really good ones?
ogou
You are internet savvy enough to find Hacker News and post this question. Why can't you make use of platforms or sources other than video-centric YouTube that are specifically designed to provide what you are asking for? It's surprising that you don't know what a podcast is. I run into this paradox more and more often these days. I assumed it was generational, but admit that it comes from many groups now.
Ldorigo
Most podcasts I tried were way longer and less information-dense than the YouTube channels I mentioned. I don't want to listen to 2-hour conversations with content that can effectively be summarized in 10 minutes or less.
joenot443
I think you're asking for something which doesn't really exist, then.

Here's an idea - just listen to audiobooks. If you're not interested in podcasts and you're not interested in videos, I'm not sure what other options there are. People don't generally make "audio-only" YouTube channels because people who want audio-only entertainment normally choose podcasts.

Further, if your only experience with podcasts is 2h conversations which could be summed up in 10min, then you really just haven't explored enough I'm afraid. The channel you mentioned, Economics Explained, has a great podcast.

skyyler
Seems pretty clear to me that they’re looking for a shorter form than what a podcast normally provides.
joenot443
I guess so. There are lots of 30-60min podcasts, but you're right that they mostly don't get much shorter.
tomcam
Question makes perfect sense to me. Not OP but I pay for YouTube to avoid commercials and for some reason, perhaps simply because of its robust background play, it’s my favorite podcast medium by a long shot.
omgmajk
Barely Sociable is my goto for listening, his voice is very soothing even if the topics are sometimes a bit in conspiracy land.

If you like games I also like Suggestive Gaming, Noah Caldwell-Gervais, Gaming Harry, Gingy and YourFavoriteSon.

Quinn's ideas was mentioned below, it's also great if you like sci-fi.

None of these channels rely a lot on visuals and is mostly written from a listening perspective, in my opinion.

lacrimacida
While at it you should try invidio.us which lets you downgrade video and just listen to audio while your phone screen is off.
TheFreim
I really enjoy Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World, I've watched/listened to every episode.

Description: "Jimmy Akin’s Mysterious World is an exploration of the weird, the strange, and the unusual. Join Jimmy Akin and co-host Domenico Bettinelli for a fascinating look at ancient mysteries, folk tales, urban legends, crimes, conspiracies, and the supernatural from the twin perspectives of faith and reason."

You can either listen on YouTube (https://youtube.com/@JimmyAkin) which has an optional video component or the podcast version (https://mysterious.fm).

deftnerd
I am a big fan of The History Guy (https://youtube.com/@TheHistoryGuyChannel)

He's very affable, good voice and cadence, and it's enjoyable even in an audio-only format. He's also very prolific, producing three episodes a week with several years in his back catalog.

ben_w
SFIA also comes in podcast form, not just video.
Natfan
The Exploring Series is brilliant and covers many different topics, mainly SCP but he's branched out to Warhammer 40k, creepypasta and real-life historical events.
rmilejczz
Some channels I use for this: Action Button is indescribable, Fredrik Knudsen, Folding Ideas and Oki’s Weird Stories do excellent deep dives, JCS Criminal Psychology, Dreading, Dave’s Lemonade are all excellent channels focusing on courtroom testimony and police interrogation footage,

If you have some specific interests like space or history or war I could recommend some more channels, I just picked the ones that I use the most personally. If you only take one recommendation then it should be Action Button, trust me these are so much more than just video game reviews and can be listened to many times thanks to their density

wafflemaker
Open Source Security by kurt and Josh.

Around 30min, but always something about weather in canada or potholes, in addition to a discussion on security.

aunetx
If you like cosmology and astronomy, you may love SEA! Its visualisations are beautiful too but not needed
iancmceachern
It's not audio only, but I really like Asianometry, cyrious droid and other scienceengineering/history channels and joblo movie recaps for doing chores to.
squarefoot
If your concern is bandwidth related, you can use the "Youtube Audio" Firefox extension to access only the audio from a feed to save bandwidth, otherwise why not going for podcasts?