I'm one who detests Elloquence speech. Although it's clear, the voice sounds quite synthetic to me. The voices that really sound human are the ones on the HIMS BookSense. I would never buy a Stream because its voice sounds terrible! Paul and Kate are the most human-sounding voices I've ever heard. I can't remember whether or not you can change the Elloquence voice on the Apex, but the U2Q only has that one male voice that grates on my nerves! I prefer male bass voices, like Harry on my Dectalk synthesizer on my PC.
When I used to have my mPower and my Apex, I used Keynote Gold. It doesn't sound as well as DecTalk or Paul and Kate, but it sounds better to me than Elloquence. I can't explain exactly why I feel this way.
Synthesizers are a subjective thing, so I don't mind if people disagree with me. I keep speech turned off on my U2Q most of the time. I have more privacy when I do that.
Terri, Amateur Radio Call Sign KF6CA.----- Original Message ----- From: "Ricardo Herrera" <deathdogg@xxxxxxxxx> To: <b.lingard@xxxxxxxxxxxx>; <braillenote@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>; <pann1@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, November 04, 2013 9:12 AM Subject: Re: [BNU] notetakers and Eloquence speech
Here are some comments on eloquence. Now, everyone has their personal preference, but here is something I just don't get. When I had my apex, I never, ever had problems with eloquence. It ran smoothly, and the speed of my device was not compromised by running this speech engine. I'm bringing that up because that is one reason why some don't like eloquence on the apex. Everyone that I know personally runs eloquence, and I haven't heard of problems because of it, except on this list. Now on to my other point, how can people stand that robbotic voice? Kng I mean? When I had an mpower for a really short amount of time, that was the voice that it had on it. Now back then, I was new to the braille note, and didn't know how to change it to eloquence, but the moment I heard kng, I hated it. It sounded like a robot, not human at all. It was almost like going back to freedom scientific and their lame voices, that at the time sounded great. Actually, I think their voice on the really old notetakers such as the braille light were much better than kng. Anyway, then I got the apex, and I was happy it had eloquence. Eloquence doesn't sound like a robot. The adult male variant of eloquence, which is what most people know, sounds well, perfect. You can't hear cracking in the voice, unlike some other voices. That and all the voice over voice on iOS and some of the best out there, which is why I got the eloquence voice for nvda. Now espeak sounds like a robot too. The thing I find with having robotic voices is that when you're in a public setting and someone happens to hear it, they'll automatically know and mark you as the blind person with a robot doing your work. However, with a more human sounding voice, which seems to be the trend nowadays, people are less likely to think of you as such. They'll just think of it as a pda, not a robot doing your tasks. And yes, computers are technically, but really, when was the last time you thought of computers as such? (you in second person) All that I have outlined above is all subjective, and as I said, it is a matter of personal preference. I'd be very interested to know why people hate eloquence so much and get some additional feedback. It really is one of the best synthesizers out there in my opinion, and I hope that development continues, although there really isn't much else to do to it except fix problems with pronunciation in other languages. Ok, now, feedback!----- Original Message ----- From: Terri Pannett <pann1@xxxxxxxxxxx> To: b.lingard@xxxxxxxxxxxx,"'bn list'" <braillenote@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Date: Monday, November 4, 2013 8:51 Subject: [BNU] notetakers and Eloquence speechI changed the subject line to start a new thread but reply to your message.I don't care for Elloquence speech and I always preferred KeyNote Gold speech when I had my Apex qt. But for those of you who like it, the HIMSnotetakers support Elloquence quite well. I don't understand why HumanWarecan't fix it so their notetakers would do the same thing. Terri, Amateur Radio Call Sign KF6CA.----- Original Message ----- From: "Brian Lingard" <b.lingard@xxxxxxxxxxxx>To: "'bn list'" <braillenote@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Monday, November 04, 2013 5:31 AM Subject: [BNU] Re: Note on Recent Spam Posts > Ottawa Canada > > Dear Alex and List: > > The spammer's misspelling of Wednesday did not seem to affect the > Eloquence in > my JAWS 15. Hooray! > >> But if his crash words caused your BrailleNote, Voice note or Apex > running> Eloquence to crash it gets old very quickly/. > > Brian > > > ------------------------------- > BNU: BrailleNote Users - a forum for users of BrailleNote family of > products from Humanware. > Website: www.braillenoteusers.info > > IMPORTANT: By default, replies will be sent to individuals. If you feel > that your reply would be useful for others, please use "reply to all" > feature in your email client. >> If you wish to unsubscribe from this list, send an email with the > subject> line of "unsubscribe" to braillenote-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx. > > You can also visit our list page at: > www.freelists.org/list/braillenote > From this page, you can unsubscribe, change email delivery settings and > view list archives. >> If you have any comments or questions for list moderators, please send > an> email to braillenote-moderators@xxxxxxxxxxxxx. Thanks. -------------------------------BNU: BrailleNote Users - a forum for users of BrailleNote family of products from Humanware.Website: www.braillenoteusers.infoIMPORTANT: By default, replies will be sent to individuals. If you feel that your reply would be useful for others, please use "reply to all" feature in your email client.If you wish to unsubscribe from this list, send an email with the subject line of "unsubscribe" to braillenote-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx.You can also visit our list page at: www.freelists.org/list/braillenoteFrom this page, you can unsubscribe, change email delivery settings and view list archives.If you have any comments or questions for list moderators, please send an email to braillenote-moderators@xxxxxxxxxxxxx. Thanks.Sent from my Braille Sense u2 through primary email address (deathdogg)
------------------------------- BNU: BrailleNote Users - a forum for users of BrailleNote family of products from Humanware. Website: www.braillenoteusers.info IMPORTANT: By default, replies will be sent to individuals. If you feel that your reply would be useful for others, please use "reply to all" feature in your email client. If you wish to unsubscribe from this list, send an email with the subject line of "unsubscribe" to braillenote-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx. You can also visit our list page at: www.freelists.org/list/braillenote From this page, you can unsubscribe, change email delivery settings and view list archives. If you have any comments or questions for list moderators, please send an email to braillenote-moderators@xxxxxxxxxxxxx. Thanks.
