Text To Speech Extra Quality - Eric Ivona

In the early 2010s, "Eric" became one of the most legendary voices in the text-to-speech (TTS) community. Created by Ivona Software

Following the acquisition, the independent Ivona brand began to sunset. The technology and voices—including Eric—were integrated into Amazon Polly, a cloud-based service that allows developers to bake speech capabilities into their own applications. Why Eric Remains Popular Today eric ivona text to speech

• Amazon Polly initially offered a Romanian male voice named "Gheorghe" (which succeeded Eric) and a female voice named "Carmen." However, the original "Eric" voice engine for desktop (Ivona Reader) was discontinued.
• Offline Ivona apps (Ivona Text-to-Speech for Android/iOS) were removed from app stores.
• Licensing changed: Users could no longer buy Eric as a standalone voice pack.

tool. It allows users to create audio files for social media and commercial projects with up to 20 free files before requiring registration. In the early 2010s, "Eric" became one of

Method 1: Amazon Polly (The "Matthew" Voice)

Amazon Polly uses the same underlying Ivona technology but with a neural upgrade. The voice most similar to Eric is Matthew (US English). While not identical—Matthew is slightly smoother and faster—it is the direct descendant of Eric. Amazon Polly initially offered a Romanian male voice

• AWS Console (pay-as-you-go).
• Free tier: 1 million characters per month for the first 12 months.
• Tools like Polly for WordPress, TTSReader, or Play.ht integrate Polly voices.

Eric became the "gold standard" for male British English voices. Known for his professional, clear, and authoritative tone, Eric was widely adopted by:

Have you ever used the original Ivona voices? Which TTS voice do you find the most natural? Let me know in the comments below.

acquired IVONA to power its Kindle devices and build the foundation for what we now know as Alexa.