To understand SoundBooth, you must understand Adobe’s strategy in 2010. Adobe had acquired Cool Edit Pro (rebranded as Audition) years earlier, but Audition was deeply intertwined with Windows-specific code (DirectX and the Windows sound architecture). Mac users, who were rapidly adopting Adobe’s suite for video production, had no native high-end audio editor.

To understand SoundBooth CS5, you must understand the state of Adobe in 2010. Adobe had acquired Cool Edit Pro (rebranding it as Audition) years earlier, but Audition was a Windows-only application. The Creative Suite was becoming increasingly cross-platform (Mac/Windows), yet Mac users had no native Adobe audio editor.