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Over 160 people participated in blind listening tests with noisy conditions and overwhelmingly preferred a cell phone with the Audience Voice Processor compared to other mobile handsets

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., March 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Audience today announced the results of The Audience Challenge, subjective noise suppression tests done at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2009 in Barcelona, February 16-19. 167 people participated in the tests and came away hearing a clear difference between the Audience solution and those of three leading mobile handsets. According to the participants, the cell phone with the Audience Voice Processor was the only one in which the noise was not noticeable, and the voice quality was good.

The Audience Challenge was done to capture subjective reactions to transmit noise suppression delivered by different two-microphone cell phones in the market and was based on the telecommunications industry standard for a subjective voice quality metric, the Mean Opinion Score (MOS). The company attracted show attendees to listen to an Audience-enabled phone and rate it compared to a handset with competitive two-microphone noise suppression, evaluating background noise level and voice quality. The Audience-enabled handset was the only one that delivered a "Satisfied" rating on the MOS scale. Two of the other phones fell significantly below the customer complaint threshold, and the final phone fell between "Many" and "Some" users dissatisfied.

"In 2008, mobile handsets started to emerge with advanced noise suppression capabilities employing two microphones in the handset to suppress non-stationary noise, but not all noise suppression solutions deliver the same consistently strong performance in all conditions," said Peter Santos, CEO of Audience. "Attendees at Mobile World Congress confirmed that, when compared to three leading handsets, Audience's noise suppression technology is clearly the best."

Noise suppression is measured through both objective and subjective test methodologies. The objective methodology is outlined in ITU-T standard G.160 Appendix II, and Audience recently published results of this testing, which clearly demonstrated the superiority of Audience's noise suppression technology. Now, the subjective testing of The Audience Challenge again shows Audience to have the best noise suppression solution. To find out the competitive phones tested, and to read the results from The Audience Challenge, go to http://www.audience.com/Launch/ for the white paper that explains the metrics and shows the results of the tests.

Audience Voice Processors are the first custom ICs that are modeled after the most efficient and accurate auditory system, the human hearing system. By understanding the auditory pathway - from the cochlea to the brainstem to the thalamus and cortex - Audience is the first company to deliver a commercial product based on the science of Auditory Scene Analysis (ASA), or the grouping and processing of complex mixtures of sound. Because the Audience Voice Processor handles signals the way people actually perceive specific sounds, it is able to identify and suppress noise sources in an extremely efficient and accurate manner.

About Audience

Audience is a voice processor company that enables clear communications anywhere with noise suppression technology based on the intelligence of the human hearing system. The technology is applicable across a broad range of consumer products where voice needs to be intelligible in noisy environments and is already enabling people to be heard on mobile handsets throughout Japan and Korea. Audience was the Silver Winner in the 2008 Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Awards and the Winner of the Semiconductor category. The company was included in Gartner's "Cool Vendors in Semiconductors, 2008" and selected as the Most Innovative True Mobile Start-Up for the "2008 GSMA Mobile Innovation Global Awards." Audience is one of 34 founding member companies of the Open Handset Alliance and the only one with advanced noise suppression technology. Investors in Audience include Vulcan Capital, NEA, Tallwood Venture Capital and VentureTech Alliance. Audience, www.audience.com, is based in Mountain View, California.