A phrase detection device includes a high latency pipeline to transmit a first portion of audio data from an audio data source to a processing unit, where the high latency pipeline includes a history buffer to store the first portion of the audio data, and a low latency pipeline to transmit a second portion of the audio data from the audio data source to the processing unit with a lower latency than the high latency pipeline. A sound onset detector coupled with the audio data source detects a sound onset event based on the audio data. A synchronization circuit coupled with the high latency pipeline and the low latency pipeline, in response to the sound onset event, synchronizes output to the processing unit of the first portion of the audio data stored in the history buffer and the second portion of the audio data via the low latency pipeline.