software speech problem after latest also upgrade

[Chuck Hallenbeck]

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Greg,

On my system, a similar problem with software speech followed the
upgrade of the alsa libraries (libasound2) from 1.0.15 to 1.0.16, and
takes the form of the disappearance of the first couple hundred
milliseconds of a wave file played by aplay.

The problem does a real number of software speech with espeak, which is
made up of numerous very short wave files, so it is more noticeable.
When you use flite, each wave file produced by that engine contains
leading and trailing silent periods, which makes it seem more sluggish,
but protects you from the alsa problem.

If your recent upgrade of also was from 1.0.15 of the libraries to
1.0.16, perhaps you have the same problem.

Look more closely at how aplay handles wave files with abrupt onset of
audio and see if there isn't a very slow startup for the sound. I have
lots of sound effects here with fast onsets, such as the morse code
characters, cuckoo clock sounds, etc., where the problem is very
noticeable when aplay plays the files.

And it doesn't help to switch to play any more either, since play now
uses alsa by default if it is present. 

I wish I knew how to backtrack to 1.0.15, but that version of the alsa
libraries is no longer available in the Debian unstable archive.

Chuck

- -- 
The Moon is Waning Crescent (8% of Full)

   My web site is: http://hallenbeck.ftml.net, my phone is: 1-518-334-9022,
         and sometimes I  Jabber. My JID is: chuckh at jabber.org
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       For every vision there is an equal and opposite revision.
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