Listen Inc announced its 20th year as a leading provider of audio test and measurement systems. Two decades of innovation and steady growth have made Listen’s flagship product, SoundCheck, an industry-standard audio test system in the consumer electronics industry. The company is commemorating the occasion with updated branding, a new website, and a free SoundCheck demo software offer!
Listen began operations in 1995 when a consulting client of Steve Temme, company founder and president, challenged him to build a computer-based system with the same capabilities as the hardware system that they currently owned. This challenge came with a promise that if Steve could produce the system within 6 months he would buy it. Steve met the challenge, the product was named ‘SoundCheck’, and the customer purchased 12 systems. Steve then began to further develop the product to meet the test requirements of a wider audience.
Although the first generation of SoundCheck was designed specifically for testing military headsets, the subsequent version was designed with a very open architecture which allowed virtually any audio device to be tested. It is this open architecture which has, in part, led to Listen’s success as the system has inherently been able to adapt to the changing test requirements of the audio industry over the past 2 decades. For example, in the 1990’s, SoundCheck was primarily used for testing loudspeaker and microphones, but today its most common applications are testing headphones, microspeakers, smartphones, tablets and Bluetooth devices.
SoundCheck Software is now the heart of a SoundCheck test system. It generates all the test signals, performs analysis and displays results according to the user’s configuration. SoundCheck is able to run test sequences configured by the user, allows software implementation of standard audio test equipment as virtual instruments and performs multiples types of data analyses according to different applications and standards.
Although Listen has its roots firmly in software, today Listen also offers turnkey systems with a complete line of audio test hardware. Designed from the ground up, Listen’s hardware products are engineered to specifically meet the needs of the audio test industry, thus making them reliable, simple to use and cost effective, as well as tightly integrated with Listen’s software.
Listen is still owned and managed by Steve Temme, and is headquartered in an 8000 square foot facility in the South End of Boston, within a mile of where the company started 20 years ago. Listen also has sales and application engineers on the West Coast, and a worldwide sales and support network. Listen is still growing steadily, and continues to expand its engineering and sales teams.
“We at Listen, Inc. are thankful to our many customers for making this anniversary possible,” said Steve Temme, president of Listen, Inc. “Their feedback has driven product development and helped us evolve as a company. We look forward to continuing to innovate with our products and test methods, and to serving our valued customers for many years to come.”
SoundCheck 14.01 and 14.11 Now Available
Listen just released bug-fix upgrades to SoundCheck versions 14.0 (Windows) and 14.1 (Mac version). These patches are free of charge to all registered users of Version 14.0 and 14.1 and Listen recommends that all systems should be updated to these latest versions to ensure optimum performance.
In 2015, Listen released SoundCheck 14.1 for Mac, offering similar functionality to the Windows version of SoundCheck 14. This was the first large-scale commercial audio test software to run natively on a Mac, allowing seamless integration with Listen’s expanding line of hardware products including AmpConnect, DC Connect, SoundConnect 2 and AudioConnect. You can read more about it here.
Listen is also working on Windows 10 support and is continuously releasing information on audio interface compatibility and information on latency settings on its website.
Try SoundCheck for Free!
Listen’s new website now also features an interesting timeline documenting its 20 years achievements. Worth checking. But probably the best reason to visit Listen’s new website is to benefit from the opportunity to try SoundCheck for Free! Listen is offering a free, no obligation, demo software following the link below.
www.listeninc.com/freetrial
