Does Jeff Hays narrate anything besides Dungeon Crawler Carl?

Yes — but DCC is the flagship and the production that defines his current reputation. Soundbooth Theater also produces audio for other LitRPG and dark-fantasy series, often with multi-cast productions and full sound design rather than single-voice narration.

What makes Soundbooth Theater different from a standard audiobook production?

Standard audiobooks are single-narrator readings with minimal post-production. Soundbooth Theater builds full audio dramas with multiple voice actors, sound design (echo, mixing, environmental cues), and music. The DCC dungeon-AI broadcast scenes, for example, are mixed to sound like actual broadcast audio rather than just narrated dialogue.

Is Jeff Hays accepting new audiobook narration work?

His schedule is largely committed to Soundbooth Theater productions. For other LitRPG audiobooks at the same craft level, see [Travis Baldree](/narrators/travis-baldree/) and [Nick Podehl](/narrators/nick-podehl/), our #2 and #3 ranked narrators.

Jeff Hays — Narrator Profile & Grade

Overall grade

5 stars — the masterclass tier on our rating system, and the reference point for what that tier means in this genre. Jeff Hays's work as both the lead voice and the production driver of Soundbooth Theater's Dungeon Crawler Carl audiobooks is what the rest of the genre's audio gets measured against. He is the standard.

Signature strengths

Character range without caricature. The hardest thing in multi-voice narration is giving every character a distinct voice that doesn't tip into cartoon. Carl's flat exhaustion, Donut's piercing entitlement, the dungeon AI's smarmy corporate cheer, and dozens of supporting characters in the DCC cast all sit in clearly different vocal registers without any one performance pulling focus from the story it's serving.

Production-as-narration. Soundbooth Theater audiobooks are built more like audio dramas than traditional narrated books. Sound design is layered in — echo on corridor scenes, broadcast-style mixing on the AI sequences, environmental audio that supports rather than distracts from the prose. When the dungeon AI breaks into the narrative to interrupt Carl, the audio mix actually sounds like a broadcast interrupting a narrator. This level of production is rare in LitRPG and is part of what makes his work the genre standard.

Sustained energy across long material. Dungeon Crawler Carl is now eight books deep, with the longest entries running 20+ hours each. A narration that's great at hour one can flag by hour fifteen; Hays's doesn't. The performance level holds.

Production-house craft. As the founder of Soundbooth Theater, Hays isn't just narrating — he's overseeing the casting, mixing, and audio direction. The result is a coherent audio identity across the productions, not just a strong individual voice.

Watch-outs

You're hearing Soundbooth Theater, not just Jeff Hays. Most of what makes the DCC audiobooks distinctive is the production — multi-cast voice work, sound design, mixing — not solo narration. If you're trying to compare Hays as a single-voice narrator against, say, Travis Baldree's solo work, you're comparing different formats. The Soundbooth productions are unusual in the genre, which is part of why they stand out.

Catalogue is narrower than the top-tier reputation suggests. (Founder to expand) Jeff Hays's broader narration work outside DCC isn't as commonly discussed in the genre, and the productions outside Soundbooth Theater don't carry the same multi-cast craft. A reader who loves DCC won't necessarily find that same experience in everything else Hays has voiced.

Best performances

Dungeon Crawler Carl (Matt Dinniman) — the definitive entry. Read the full Worth the Credit review of Book 1 and the series reading-order guide.
(Founder to add other Soundbooth Theater productions worth highlighting.)

Where to start

There is no question: start with Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 1. It is the single most-recommended LitRPG audiobook in the genre, and the Soundbooth Theater production is the reason most listeners encounter Hays at all. If you have only one Audible credit to spend on the genre this year, this is where it goes.

Once you've heard the DCC production, our Best LitRPG Audiobook Narrators ranking and the Best LitRPG Audiobooks for Beginners list are the right next steps for finding more.