Audience Announces 3rd Generation Sound Processor - eS515

Audience earSmart eS515

World’s First Smart Sound Processor Combines Best in Class Codec with Leading Advanced Voice Technology to Enable New Levels of Personal Presence on Mobile Devices

Product Overview

The earSmart eS515 Smart Sound Processor combines Audience’s award-winning earSmart Advanced Voice processor with a its first high performance, low power stereo audio codec to deliver a best in class voice and multimedia experience.  In addition, Audience’s Smart Sound Processor improves the accuracy of Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) for smartphones, tablet and other consumer devices.  

Now, more than ever, high-end mobile device users are demanding clearer voice quality, “first-time success voice recognition” and an immersive sound experience. This higher functionality, combined with slimmer designs and larger displays, is leading device manufacturers to look for tightly integrated processing solutions that deliver more, for less power.  The earSmart eS515 offers a level of system integration not previously available for customers accepting nothing less than best-in-class voice and multi-media quality.   The Audience eS515 is the first sound processor to offer advanced digital signal and multimedia processing integrated with a complete high-performance, low-power audio codec subsystem.

Be Heard – With Best in Class Voice Processing

The earSmart eS515 features 3rd generation Advanced Voice processing features.  It delivers the world’s first true support of three-microphones, where all three are used simultaneously to gather more environmental information around the user and deliver vastly improved voice quality. The processing power of the earSmart eS515 has more than doubled to support high sample-rate VoIP calls (at 24 kHz) in addition to Narrowband and Wideband noise suppression.  The earSmart eS515 offers the industry's first de-reverberation solution to reduce the echo of a speaker's voice in hallways, conference rooms and other challenging environments.

Be Understood – With Optimized ASR Assist

Audience ASR Assist technology directly addresses the challenge faced by many speech recognition applications today, namely their failure to recognize spoken words and complete assigned tasks because of disruptive background noise.  The earSmart eS515 uses custom hardware-accelerated algorithms to isolate voice from surrounding environmental noise, dramatically improving the accuracy of speech-enabled applications such as voice search and speech to text.  Mobile devices equipped with Audience ASR Assist technology deliver improved speech application reliability, accuracy and task completion – even in noisy, distracting environments. 

Be There… Captured Memories Sound as Good as They Look

Mobile devices today are relied upon for media capture as much as they are for communication.  The desire for captured audio to have the same high definition (HD) quality as video has never been more apparent. The earSmart eS515 Smart Sound Processor features the world’s first two-microphone 48 KHz noise suppression implementation for recording clean, high definition audio. The Audience eS515 also features Audio Zoom, the world’s first selective audio capture feature to be deployed for mobile devices. Audio Zoom allows users to dynamically switch between narrator mode, with a single speaker, to interview mode, where the person holding the device can “interview” another person. Interview mode leverages Audience’s industry leading stationary noise reduction technology to capture both voices with crystal clear accuracy while still suppressing background noise.

Product Description

The earSmart eS515 Smart Sound Processor is a high performance custom designed audio processing solution with a significant level of integration and flexibility. It includes an Audience Advanced Voice processor with a hardware acceleration engine that has been optimized to run computationally intensive audio processing algorithms at very low-power consumption.

In addition, the highly integrated Audience earSmart eS515 Smart Sound Processor includes multiple host interfaces, digital audio interfaces, and a high performance, low power codec subsystem. This best in class codec consists of three ADCs on the record path and four DACs on the playback path. Two of the ADCs are designed for microphone inputs and the third is an auxiliary ADC that can be used with line level input. The codec subsystem consists of stereo class D speaker drivers, stereo class G headphone drivers, an earpiece driver, and two line outputs.

Key features of the Audience earSmart eS515 Smart Sound Processor are:

·      High performance, low-power codec with stereo class-D and stereo class-G drivers

o   Stereo Class-D loud speaker driver

§  1.13 Watt output power (4.8V)

§  Control circuitry for low EMI emissions

§  Integrated anti-pop circuitry for all driver output paths

§  Filter-less design implementation for lower system cost

o   Stereo Class-G headphone driver

§  30 mW output power (16Ω)

§  Cap-less amplifier

§  Charge-pump design for ground centered outputs

§  Headphone/headset accessory and button detection circuitry

·      8kHz, 16kHz, as well as 24kHz voice processing capabilities for transmit and receive non-stationary noise suppression

·      Hardware-assisted power optimization for low power consumption

·      Transmit de-reverberation algorithms for reducing the undesired effect and distortion from environmental reverberation

·      SLIMbus digital audio and command interface support for easy integration

·      Advanced multimedia processing capabilities for enhanced audio recording and playback

·      Automated Speech Recognition Assist for ASR-optimized noise suppression and gain control

Product Highlights