Audience, Inc.

About Audience, Inc.

Audience, Inc. operated as a semiconductor company specializing in mobile voice and audio processing before its acquisition. Founded in 2000 by Dr. Lloyd Watts and based in Mountain View, California, the firm was a key innovator in the field of sound processing systems. Audience went public in May 2012, trading on the NASDAQ under the symbol ADNC. A significant milestone was its role as one of the 34 founding members of The Open Handset Alliance.

The company's business was centered on designing and producing advanced voice processors and smart audio codecs for consumer electronics, primarily serving mobile phone and PC manufacturers. Its technology was integrated into over 140 devices, including prominent models like the Google Nexus One, various Samsung Galaxy smartphones, and the iPhone 4 and 4S. Audience's business model involved licensing its technology and selling its semiconductor chips to major electronics brands such as HTC, Huawei, and Dell.

Audience's core product was its earSmart™ processors, which were designed based on the principles of human hearing and auditory neuroscience. This technology, built on Computational Auditory Scene Analysis (CASA), mimicked the human ability to isolate a voice from a noisy environment, often referred to as the "cocktail party effect". By using two or more microphones, the processors could identify and suppress background noise, resulting in significantly improved voice clarity for the listener. The technology also featured capabilities like "always listening" mode for voice commands and enhanced performance for VoIP applications. In a strategic move to broaden its capabilities, Audience acquired software company Sensor Platforms for $41 million in June 2014 to expand into sound-plus-motion context awareness. In July 2015, Knowles Corporation acquired Audience for an enterprise value of approximately $85 million, incorporating it as a wholly-owned subsidiary to expand its own intelligent audio and signal processing solutions.