Ben, Yes, it has indeed been a topic for some time. I'm quite used to double-talk now and favor it because I can always understand what is being said. I liken it to haveing a friend who is foreign-born with a thick accent. At first you can't understand a word they say, but over time you get used to his way of speaking and can understand him perfectly. He hasn't lost his accent - you've just trained your ear. Not that there aren't some better voices around. It might take a hardware upgrade to get the BC to have new voices available. I expect we'll see a whole new BC in the next couple of years with lots of new features like multiple voice synths, USB 2 support (for faster transfers) and maybe compatibility with the new Library of Congress electronic talking book format. You can do the text-to-mp3 conversion, but you lose word-by-word navigation and spelling features. Hope you enjoy your BC - I couldn't live without mine! Ted ________________________________ From: bookcourier-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:bookcourier-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bennie and Catherine van Rensburg Sent: Saturday, April 29, 2006 9:05 AM To: bookcourier@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [bookcourier] BETTER VOICES? Hallo There! I've only been using Book Courier for a month and have found it to be a most useful piece of electronics. Previously, when I travelled, I couldn't read any books, as a laptop was almost as much trouble to carry around as a desktop! I bought my Book Courier with open eyes, as it were, having listened to Exact Pete on-line. However, I still found it amazing that Springer isn't using a better voice. To my mind, there is so much better available now. I put this point to support, suggesting Eloquence or IBM Read. They told me, in a very courteous reply, that this issue had been discussed often before on the list and that there were as many preferences as there were voices. So I apologise if I'm introducing a hackneyed subject, but don't you guys think there's something better out there than Double-Talk? Regards. Bennie Ben and Catherine van Rensburg c/o South African Embassy Granatny Per 1, bldg 9 123001 MOSCOW Tel: +7 495 2990326 (Home) Note: New area code for Moscow Mobile (Ben) +7 8 915 397 6347 Mobile (Catherine) +7 8 915 300 40 43 South Africa +27 12 667 3545 (Parents/Claudia)