Pimsleur is “updating” their language courses. The audio quality of the recordings has worsened and the professional voice of the teacher, which has been the same for decades, has been replaced by an amateur who has no media training at all. (Compare the “updated” Italian 1 to the original French 1, for example.) Presumably this will happen to other courses they offer.
I voiced this concern with them and asked to have access to the original recordings. I was told that they’ll no longer be available even though I’ve paid for them. It’s as if you purchased a textbook only to have the company reclaim and replace it with an inferior edition written by completely different authors. If you use the Pimsleur programs, are a subscriber or — God forbid — have made the mistake of purchasing a lifetime membership then consider reaching out about this by e-mail (pimsleur@simonandschuster.com), on social media or on an app store.
This is part of a broader problem with digital as opposed to physical media. I was recently informed by Vimeo, for instance, that I have no right to access the videos I purchased — not rented — because they’ve been deleted and it’s somewhere in the fine print that they can be removed at any time and I’m not entitled to a refund. Pimsleur is essentially telling me the same thing. But no one would accept it if companies were allowed to take back DVDs they’d sold you. Given that you increasingly can’t buy a physical disc I don’t see why we should accept this, but I imagine this loss will become the new normal unless we speak up.