Hey guys. I agree with you about Alex, he's awesome. And I agree with Ray in the sense that Acapela has taken steps backwards. In my opinion, they've replaced quality with features that aren't really necessary. That's why I even use Alex on my iPhone. One thing about the vocalizer voices, Alex, you mentioned that they say capital before every capital letter. Well if you listen to it carefully, you'll notice that they're getting really bad with that now, because now they're saying "OS capital x" instead of saying "OS 10" like they used to. For example if I wrote OS X Yosemite right now and you read that with the Nuance voices, you'll see what I mean.
Shawn Sent From My White MacBook > On Feb 8, 2015, at 7:17 PM, Ray Foret Jr <rforet7...@comcast.net> wrote: > > Alex, it ain't just you dude. Alex is tons better than he used to be in > every respect you mentioned. Much smoother, faster, way more responsive, > and, other than Fred, which I am using at the moment for strictly sentamintal > purposes, Alex is the best of all the voices out there. In fact, he's better > even than the Acapela voices which, if I may be frank, have taken severle > steps backward from where they used to be. > > > Sincerely, > The Constantly Barefooted Ray > > Still a happy Mac, Verizon Wireless iPhone 6+ and Apple TV user! > > Sent from my Mac, > the only computer with full accessibility for the blind built-in > >> On Feb 8, 2015, at 6:41 PM, Alex Hall <mehg...@icloud.com >> <mailto:mehg...@icloud.com>> wrote: >> >> Hi all, >> First, yes, this is about a speech synthesizer, and will thus be very >> subjective. I wanted to see, though, if anyone else might have come to the >> same conclusion I have. >> >> I got a Mac in the days of Lion, and quickly switched to the Vocalizer >> voices (Serena or Lee, mostly). When we got new ones in Mavericks, I favored >> Ava, and she is still among the best voices I know of, except a couple from >> Ivona. In testing things for Yosemite, I kept switching from Ava to Alex, >> just to see if any problems were being caused by the use of Nuance voices. I >> accidentally made a startling discovery: Alex used to be pretty bad a few >> years ago, but now, he's quite good. I've always liked the breathing thing, >> but Alex would constantly run words together, mispronounce syllables, and >> have other small problems that made him hard to understand, especially at >> higher speeds. The more I use him in Yosemite, though, the more I look for >> reasons to switch back to Ava, but the more those reasons allude me. Ava >> misses the period after certain words, like "app", Alex doesn't; Ava says >> "capital" before uppercase letters, although that setting is disabled, and >> Alex doesn't; VoiceOver has delays when opening the VO Utility or bringing >> up VO menus while using Nuance voices, but with Alex, I find no such delays; >> and more. >> >> So, is it just me, or has Alex gotten way better? I don't mean "better" in >> that VoiceOver runs faster while using Alex, although it certainly does. I >> mean "better" in that, compared to a few years ago, he's far clearer when >> speaking and makes far fewer mistakes. Maybe I'm misremembering, or maybe >> I'm the only one to notice, since the change was likely gradual and thus >> invisible to those who have used Alex all along. Either way, I'm interested >> in hearing your thoughts, and I'm more eager than ever to obtain a 64-bit >> iPhone so I can start using Alex there as well. My only complaint about Alex >> is that he doesn't speed up very well - sure, he can go crazy fast, but I >> find I miss things at more than 70% speaking rate. Anyway, what do you all >> think? If you haven't used Alex in a long time, give him another chance. If >> you use him all the time, have you noticed anything? >> >> -- >> Have a great day, >> Alex Hall >> mehg...@icloud.com <mailto:mehg...@icloud.com> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "MacVisionaries" group. >> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an >> email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com >> <mailto:macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com>. >> To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com >> <mailto:macvisionaries@googlegroups.com>. >> Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries >> <http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries>. >> For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout >> <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>. > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "MacVisionaries" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com > <mailto:macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com>. > To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com > <mailto:macvisionaries@googlegroups.com>. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries > <http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries>. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout > <https://groups.google.com/d/optout>. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to macvisionaries+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to macvisionaries@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/macvisionaries. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
