why is audacity playback too fast by default

Note that there are two green arrow play buttons. The one on the left always plays at normal speed. You can use the smaller one on the right (in your screen shot) to play faster or slower.

The change speed in the effect dropdown is applied to your selection (defaults to whole clip) to change the speed of that portion permanently.

greg57 said:

Note that there are two green arrow play buttons. The one on the left always plays at normal speed. You can use the smaller one on the right (in your screen shot) to play faster or slower.

The change speed in the effect dropdown is applied to your selection (defaults to whole clip) to change the speed of that portion permanently.

think I sort off know what u hitting at, but permanently, is a bit much even u got there by mistake, will try to reconstruct