so i yes, espeak exists and still sounds terrible even worse than picoTTS (last update 4 yrs ago?). so what else is there? i look at mimic3 and it says they are dead and one should go for piper here: https://github.com/MycroftAI/mimic3 the link to piper followed I get: https://github.com/rhasspy/piper "This repository was archived by the owner on Oct 6, 2025. It is now read-only. "

ok, so coqui? https://github.com/coqui-ai/TTS no update in over 12 months…how bad can it be? https://coqui.ai/ …great it is a page for gambling now.

so, what are you using? gTTS is not offline.

  • early_riser@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    20 hours ago

    None of this may be relevant, but I’m curious what your use case is. I use TTS very extensively to consume media and have my preferences. None of them are open source, but as far as I know all operate locally, though they’re baked into other programs like screen readers and ebook readers.

    I prefer older more robotic voices because they remain intelligible at high speed. Eloquence is a favorite, as are the older Apple voices like Fred and Ralph. I think it has gone by other names but TruVoice (spacing and capitalization may vary) is also up there. It was semi popular during the surreal meme era. Another memetic synth that’s a little before my time but I quite enjoy is DECTalk (AKA the Moonbase Alpha voice). I believe Vocalizer was responsible for the OG Siri voice Samantha and that one’s a more human voice that’s still serviceable at high speeds.