Text To Speech Eric Ivona 【UPDATED • 2024】
All listening sessions were conducted in a quiet lab environment (≈ 20 dB SPL background) using calibrated headphones (Sennheiser HD 650).
(All URLs accessed on 12 April 2026; the cited papers are either open‑access or available under permissive licenses.)
Acknowledgements
The authors thank the participants of the listening study for their time and the University’s Audio Lab for providing the acoustic measurement infrastructure. This work was partially funded by the Digital Accessibility Initiative (DAI‑2024).
Prepared for academic and developer audiences seeking a rigorous, citation‑rich overview of Ivona’s Eric TTS voice.
Eric is a well-known male American English text-to-speech (TTS) voice originally developed by IVONA Software, a company later acquired by Amazon. Celebrated for its natural and clear tone, the voice became a staple in early digital content creation, particularly on platforms like GoAnimate (now Vyond). 1. Historical Background and Evolution
Release: IVONA released Eric in October 2008 as part of its "life-like" voice portfolio.
Original Name: Before being rebranded as Eric, the voice was known as John.
Retirement: IVONA officially retired the voice in early 2017. Unlike many other IVONA voices, Eric was not integrated into Amazon Polly, Amazon's modern cloud TTS service. 2. Voice Characteristics and Usage text to speech eric ivona
Eric is categorized as a youthful, energetic male voice with an enthusiastic delivery.
Tone: Friendly, engaging, and clear, making it suitable for both character narration and professional presentations.
Counterpart: It is often paired with IVONA Jennifer as its female equivalent. Primary Uses:
Education: Used as an assistive technology for reading disabilities and visual impairment.
Content Creation: Highly popular for YouTube "rant" videos and social media narration during the early 2010s.
Personal Productivity: Bundled with software like TextAloud 4 for listening to documents and emails. 3. How to Access Eric Today
While officially retired from IVONA's core business lineup, the voice remains accessible through several third-party platforms and legacy software: All listening sessions were conducted in a quiet
Online Simulators: Tools like Narakeet and Speechactors still offer Eric for generating audio files from scripts.
Desktop Software: Harpo Software continues to sell Eric as a downloadable voice for Windows, often bundled with their Speech2Go application.
Legacy Platforms: A demo version is still occasionally found on the ReadSpeaker website.
Mobile Solutions: Some users maintain access through the legacy IVONA Text-to-Speech HQ app for Android by manually installing APK and OBB files from community archives. 4. Licensing and Commercial Restrictions
Standard end-user licenses for Eric, such as those from NextUp.com, typically do not allow for commercial use or the distribution of created audio files without a specific commercial license. Do you need a free alternative that sounds similar to Eric?
Are you trying to install it on a specific device (Windows, Mac, or Android)? Ivona™ Text to Speech Voices - NextUp.com
If you manage to get this voice, where does it truly shine? (All URLs accessed on 12 April 2026; the
The Text to Speech Eric Ivona voice is a US English Male voice. In the hierarchy of Ivona voices, Eric sits alongside other greats like "Salli" (US Female), "Brian" (UK Male), and "Gwyneth" (UK Female).
Amazon discontinued the "Ivona" brand name, but the voices live on in Amazon Polly.
Ivona (often referenced by voices like "Eric") is a high-quality neural/text-to-speech (TTS) system providing natural-sounding voices for apps, devices, and accessibility.
If Eric is so good, why can't you find him on the official App Store anymore?
After Amazon’s acquisition, they made a strategic decision:
As a result, finding a legitimate, native version of "Ivona Eric" on a modern Windows 11 or Mac computer is nearly impossible. However, the voice lives on through legacy software, third-party archives, and open-source TTS wrappers.
Some older TTS apps (Windows, Android) still include Ivona voices if you have legacy files, but they are no longer sold separately.
Examples (for personal use only):