What voices are people using with NVDA these days by chance other than Eloquence.

[ralfaro613@dragonscave.space]

@JeffBishop Using the 1Core engine with David.

[davidgoldfield@allovertheplace.ca]

@ralfaro613 @JeffBishop Also, the Acapela voices, while not free of cost, are also compatible with 2026.1.

[j3317@allovertheplace.ca]

@ChrisDuffley @JeffBishop i'm trying to find a eloquince addon that works with 2026.1 but haven't found it yet, i know there is one but don'[t know where to find it, i am using Sapi 5 64 bit for now

[chrisduffley@mastodon.chrisduffley.com]

@JeffBishop I sometimes like to play around with, believe it or not, Keynote Gold/Bestspeech (first heard of this being done by @Tamasg) and sometimes even RHVoice. I proudly made Keynote Gold compatible and it's a pull request on @samtupy's repo (thanks Claude and VS Code). RHVoice I believe that's in the Add-On Store now and you can download the voices you want from the website.
Bestspeech: https://chrisduffley.com/bestspeech.nvda-addon - PR: https://github.com/samtupy/b32tts_wrapper/pull/6
RHVoice: In the Add-On Store and at https://github.com/RHVoice/RHVoice/releases/download/1.18.2/RHVoice-1.18.201.nvda-addon

There are several others that you can find thanks to @datajake1999's website that should also work. WinTalker being one of those. https://datajake.braillescreen.net/TTS/SynthesizersForNVDA/

[chrisduffley@mastodon.chrisduffley.com]

@J3317 If you want the IBMTTS driver, get it here: https://github.com/davidacm/NVDA-IBMTTS-Driver/releases/download/26.4.1/IBMTTS-26.4.1.nvda-addon

[douglawlor@tweesecake.social]

@VE3RWJ @JeffBishop @alexhall I would love to have a software based version of the DoubleTalk!

[alexhall@mastodon.social]

@douglawlor @VE3RWJ @JeffBishop I'd try it for nestalgia's sake, but Doubletalk was never my favorite. I used it a whole lot on the Bookport from, what, 2003 or 2004. I never quite got used to it, not like I did KNG or some others.

[ve3rwj@mastodon.radio]

@alexhall @douglawlor @JeffBishop Whereas I'd love a software version of the Accent. Actually, I'd like to hear a sample of one now, to see if I still think it's the best. I haven't heard one in 30 years.

[ve3rwj@mastodon.radio]

@alexhall @douglawlor @JeffBishop Did you guys like DecTalk back in the day? I always thought it was mumbling when sped up.

[alexhall@mastodon.social]

@VE3RWJ @douglawlor @JeffBishop I enjoyed plenty of Dectalk's performances. I remember when someone made skits, Red Dwarf episodes, and more using its text commands. But for an everyday synthesizer, no, I never found it all that appealing.

[douglawlor@tweesecake.social]

@VE3RWJ @alexhall @JeffBishop Oh my God! The last time I heard an Accent was back sometime i 1989 or 1990.

[borrisinabox@fwoof.space]

@VE3RWJ @alexhall @douglawlor @JeffBishop I still haven't had the same kind of responsiveness with software speech as I got with my Echo 2 on an Apple IIe or IIgs, or my Accent SA. Sure, it's better now than it has ever been, but still just not quite on the same level.

[borrisinabox@fwoof.space]

@douglawlor @VE3RWJ @JeffBishop @alexhall As would I, especially if we could somehow have it without all the 8-bit-ness that Doubletalk had.

[alexhall@mastodon.social]

@douglawlor @VE3RWJ @JeffBishop I don't know about that one. My first-ever synthesizer was a Cricket connected to a computer we got in... Maybe 1995? I don't really remember its sound. I remember a plastic box with a stiff volume knob. We got a Windows 98 machine in 1998 that had an early version of Jaws with Eloquence. That's what I grew up using, until the Braille 'n Speak and later BrailleNote.

[borrisinabox@fwoof.space]

@VE3RWJ @alexhall @douglawlor @JeffBishop About lots of years too late, someone figured out how to adjust the frame rate, so it can speak faster without mumbling and slurring. I wish that had been a thing in the hardware days. I used a DECtalk PC1 and later a DECtalk Express for a while, but preferred using Doubletalk or Accent SA for responsiveness.

Doubletalk, or more specifically, a Turbo LiteTalk, was the first synthesizer I used on Windows. This was years after using Echo 2, and later the first version of the Macintosh TTS. Basically the version from 1985, which existed in Mac OS until sometime in the 7.x era. I don't remember when it actually changed.

[tamasg@mindly.social]

@ChrisDuffley @JeffBishop @samtupy @datajake1999 really appreciate you getting this out as a PR - nice work there. Didn't realize this was done 3 months ago now wow, hopefully this gets merged in, looks clean to me with just the right changes to use the b32 helper version for 64-bit and standard one for earlier copies.