Re: A good synth?

["Glenn Ervin at Home" <GlennErvin@cableone.net>]

I use a Double Talk once a while at work, when none other is around, but I
think it is pretty bad.
It does enunciate well, but the sound just bugs me.
Actually, I prefer an Artic, or external artic notetaker better than double
talk.
But most people like the DecTalk best.
Glenn

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Holmes" <steve@holmesgrown.com>
To: <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Monday, July 19, 2004 4:41 PM
Subject: Re: A good synth?


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Hey no! I don't personally own a Double Talk but when I've heard them
in the past, they began to grow on me.  Personally, I use a Speakout
from GW Micro but first of all and very unfortunately they have
stopped production as with so many hardware synths and second, when
they were sold, they went for something like $695 or so.  It is/was a
very fast and pretty easy to understand at those high speeds and best
of all, it does *NOT* force abbreviations down your throat like so
many of the software synths do.  I want to hear it say "M N" not
Minisota!!!"; ever heard of Sunday Micro Systems:)?

The worst synth I think I ever heard was a Type & Talk or possibly a
votrax and the old Echo from Street Electronics was another bad one.
At least the Echo was dirt cheap - something like $100.

I think the Accents sound pretty good and you can wind them up to be
pretty fast and you can still understand them once you're used to its
speech quality.  Again, they aren't made any more either.  I one an
Accent PC and it still works good but the SA model I also have just up
and died for no reason last year.  I hadn't had it for any more than a
year before it just up and quit so I wonder about the quality of Acent
synths in general.  My Speakout has been used a lot for something like
7 years now and I've carried it around places, replaced the internal
battery twice and I only had one incident of breakage in that whole
period.  I sure wish more hardware synths would be built.  Thank God
the Double Talk is still around.  The Tripple Talk is another option
but I don't think progress has been made yet concerning the driver for
Speakup to talk to it.  This would present another hardware synth
option.  I still feel that hardware synths are far more responsive
than any software thingy out there Software synths are nice for
portability and possibly economy but that's about it.

On Mon, Jul 19, 2004 at 12:01:57PM -0400, Sina Bahram wrote:
> Are you serious? Wow, I thought DoubleTalk had to be the worst one
> ever....that's sad that hardware synths are so bad....
>
> Thanks for your reply
>
> Take care,
> Sina
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca
[mailto:speakup-bounces@braille.uwo.ca]
> On Behalf Of nick G
> Sent: Monday, July 19, 2004 11:32 AM
> To: sbahram@nc.rr.com; Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.
> Subject: Re: A good synth?
>
>
> That's as good as it gets.  Doubletalk is second only to dectalk in the
> hardware arena in my opinion. Thanks, Nick
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Sina Bahram" <sbahram@nc.rr.com>
> To: "'Speakup is a screen review system for Linux.'"
> <speakup@braille.uwo.ca>
> Sent: Monday, July 19, 2004 11:05 AM
> Subject: A good synth?
>
>
> > Hi guys,
> >
> > I need a good hardware synth. My employer is willing to spend around
> > 300 bucks or so....I need it to work with a variety of linux apps,
> > like
> SpeakUP
> > for sure, and possibly EmacSpeak as well. Also anything else that uses
> > a hardware synth if that's possible.
> >
> > What's a good one people? In my opinion the DoubleTalk's quality is
> > just
> > *shutter* but if that's the best for that price range, I guess I'll have
> to
> > go with that.
> >
> > Thank you all for any replies.
> >
> > Take care,
> > Sina
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Speakup mailing list
> > Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> > http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
>
>
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