speech-dispatcher rate and volume settings for espeak 1.25

[Hermann]

Hi William,
I have the same settings, and my synth is very loud.
Perhaps a silly question, but did you restart Speech-dispatcher after 
changing the settings?
You can try adjusting the system volume by using aumix; is it installed on 
your machine?
If so, try:
aumix -v100 -w100
If you are satisfied with the volume type:
aumix -S
Hermann