About
About Aethel Audio
Aethel Audio is a web app that turns textbooks and research papers into narrated audio for studying. It reads equations aloud as mathematics, describes figures and tables where the text refers to them, highlights each sentence as it is read, translates chapters and answers questions about the passage you are hearing.
Why it exists
Audiobooks and read-aloud tools are made for prose. Technical reading is different: the argument lives in the equations, the figures and the tables, and those are what a general voice skips or garbles. Students, researchers and engineers have had to choose between reading everything at a desk and listening to audio with holes in it.
Aethel is built to close that gap. Its one promise is on the front page: audio that doesn't skip the equations.
How it works
- Import. You add a DRM-free EPUB, PDF or text file, or paste an arXiv link. Scanned pages are read with text recognition.
- Rebuild. Each printed equation is rebuilt as structured maths, and figures and tables are placed beside the paragraphs that refer to them.
- Narrate. A speech engine turns the notation into the words a lecturer would say, and a neural voice reads the chapter. You can hear how equations are read without an account.
- Study. The sentence being read is highlighted. You can stop on it and ask what it means, save it, review the chapter with cards, translate it, or download it to listen offline.
What is generated by AI
The narration is synthetic speech. Explanations, answers, translations, review cards and the descriptions of figures and tables are written by AI models, and they can be wrong. That is why the printed page, with its equations typeset, is always on screen beside the audio: you can check anything you hear against the source.
How these pages are written and checked
- The equation and symbol libraries. The spoken form on every page of the equation library and the symbol library is produced by the app's own speech engine, and each recording says exactly those words. Automated tests check every entry.
- Comparisons. The comparison pages say only what is documented about another product, say where it is the better choice, and show its prices only after they have been checked on the vendor's own page. Each page carries the date it was last reviewed.
- Guides. Each guide shows when it was last updated. Reference tables, such as how LaTeX commands are read aloud, are generated by the speech engine and not typed by hand.
- Corrections. If something here is wrong or out of date, tell us. We read every message.
Aethel Audio in brief
- What it is
- A study reader that turns technical books and research papers into narrated audio.
- Who it is for
- Students, researchers, engineers, finance professionals and anyone whose reading is full of equations, figures and tables.
- Where it runs
- In the browser on phones, tablets and computers. It can be installed as an app, and saved chapters play offline.
- What it reads
- DRM-free EPUB, PDF and plain-text files, scanned PDFs and arXiv links.
- Languages
- Interface in 17 languages; chapters can be translated into any of them and narrated.
- Free trial
- 5 books and 1 hour of narration, no card needed.
- Based in
- London, United Kingdom.
See plans and pricing, the FAQ, how we work with universities, libraries and creators, and our privacy policy.
Hear your own book this way.
Free to start: five books and an hour of narration, no card needed.