I take it, this new Alex is in Yosimity only? I have consistently used Compact Samantha on my Mac. I have mostly found Alex difficult to understand after long periods of reading. He seems to blur his words together. I was using him on my iPad mini for a while, but ended up going back to trusty Compact Samantha.
When I upgrade to Yosimity, maybe I’ll give Alex another whirl. :) Traci PS. Compact Samantha says OS X correctly. As in OS Ten. :) On Feb 8, 2015, at 7:27 PM, Devin Prater <d.pra...@me.com> wrote: > 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. > 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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