I've had the studdering issue for a while now, but I'd always use Fred and forget about it.
Sent from my iPhone > On Feb 8, 2015, at 9:04 PM, Alex Hall <mehg...@icloud.com> wrote: > > Thanks for the confirmation, everyone. I never thought I'd say it, but I plan > on keeping Alex as my primary voice for the foreseeable future. Of course, > that's assuming some genius doesn't port ESpeak over to the Mac. :) > > Odd that you're encountering suttering, Devin. Nuance voices would definitely > stutter and lag, even in the latest Yosemite, but Alex has no such problems. > In fact, VoiceOver with Alex is way more responsive, and I often feel like I > have that immediate response the Mac has been lacking for so long. It used to > be that a Windows screen reader had the immediacy down - hit a key, hear > speech, no delays at all - but now the Mac is getting there too. Alex is the > only voice to offer it, though; the Nuance voices I've tried still have a bit > of lag to them in all situations, and can lag terribly every so often. >> On Feb 8, 2015, at 9:56 PM, Devin Prater <d.pra...@me.com> wrote: >> >> The only thing I don't like is that Alex seems to studder and skip a little >> on the mac, but he doesn't do that on the iPhone. So I use Fred on the mac >> because of that. >> >> Sent from my iPhone >> >>> On Feb 8, 2015, at 7:59 PM, Jessica Moss <junglebookfa...@gmail.com> wrote: >>> >>> What words did you find he ran together? I use him as my default all the >>> time, and only thing I've found that sounds really weird, is when you try >>> to log in anywhere and go to the usual "remember me," checkbox, when he >>> speaks the "remember me," he sounds like he either has his teeth clenched, >>> or has something in his mouth, which always makes me cringe, and I've >>> always thought it really weird that he sounds like that. >>>> On Feb 8, 2015, at 7:41 PM, Alex Hall <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 >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> 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. >>> >>> >>> -- >>> 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. >> >> >> -- >> 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. > > > -- > Have a great day, > Alex Hall > 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. > 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. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "MacVisionaries" group. 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