New Speech??

[John Heim]

 I'd be interested to hear how it compares with a modern commercial
> synth for someone with hearing difficulties, for the purpose of
> intelligibility.  Its speech isn't as natural as the commercial synths
> of course, but that's not necessarily the same as intelligibility.


That's a good point. In fact, I was thinking about that on the bus on the 
way home last night. Somebody told me that they'd heard the new voice for 
Voiceover for the Mac and it sounded very human. It blew him away, he said. 
But that guy isn't blind.

That's what got me thinking. 80% of the time I use JAWS and Windows. The 
other 20 is speakup and a hardware synth. The default JAWS voice is quite 
nasally.  You can select voices that sound more natural but they're not as 
clear.

In fact, when people want to make sure they're understood, they usually 
speak in an unnatural tone. So I take it that you wrote espeak with 
intelligibility in mind rather than  trying to make it sound "real". If so, 
you've done a good job.