Re: nitpicky about how smoothly speech synths can speed up
I think efficiency is important in different ways to different people. For instance, I think some people want to be as efificient as possible all the time, no exceptions. So they'll routinely use speech rates which would kill me to listen to for any extended period. For me, I only care about efficiency when dealing with very verbose text. Like multi-column lists where I can't find an easy way to isolate what i want.
Say you're in a download manager and are downloading several files. The list of downloads has 5 columns: name, date, size, ETA and status, and you primarily care about status. That happens to me often. In those situations, I crank Eloquence to 50 percent with rate boost on. At tha tpoint, I can only make out bits and pieces, for example I can track what column I'm on, I can make out the first part of the file name, and I can look for specific text i.e. the status I care about. It requires concentration, but it's quicker than using a normal speaking rate and slogging through 5-10 seconds of text on each list item to get that all-important status on each one. I suppose there are better ways, such as messing with the system focus and using object nav, but remembering how to do that takes longer for me than just speeding the speech up. I know how, it just isn't something I do every day.
As for why you would even complain about how choppy the speech is... For me, it's less a matter of choppiness and more a matter of whether the synth can speed up with ease.
A good analogy might be this: Many people are impressed when they hear someone play a piece of music at an insanely fast speed. I admit I'm guilty of being overly impressed with such party tricks myself, and I have the skills to be more critical than that. Even so, I am doubly or tripply impressed with fast playing if the speed doesn't seem to present a problem i.e. the rhythms are freakishly spot on, the tone doesn't suffer, the articulation is smooth and I can hear each note. In other words, I don't find speed offensive at all as some musicians might, but I can't deal with a "struggling for speed" sound. So if it sounds like the musician is barreling through it just to set a new world record at the expense of a good controlled performance, then I can't tolerate it, especially in my speech synth I use every day. And I think I'm more picky than most about what is acceptable and what is not. Or maybe this pickiness is normal to an extent... that's why I made this topic to see what people thought.
Eloquence seems to actually be meant for fast rates in my opinion. It doesn't do anything to suggest to me that it's struggling to attain that speed, apart from the occasional clicking which does annoy me, but I think it's gotten less prevalent over time. It creates choppy speech yes, but syllables/individual sounds aren't missing, slurred or distorted, and the basic voice quality is mangled.
I suppose it's kind of an alien concept though if you're not accustomed to it.
Come to think of it, the old Speech player add-on also sped up pretty well if I recall, but I'd prefer an American dialect. And it also sounded really... stiff. Not to mention, I'm not sure if there's a version of it for new NVDA or not. If there is, it could be another fast synth contender I believe.
Hell I wish I had the skills to make my own speech synth, but I'm barely past writing simple programs in BGT so it ain't gonna happen any time soon.
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