For (non empeg) text to speech, I've always loved the sound of the AT&T Natural Voices ( http://www.naturalvoices.att.com ). I could never figure out how to just buy them directly, however, if you buy the cheapest product that http://www.nextup.com has (StocksAloud) you can buy the upgrade which gets you a male and a female AT&T Natural Voice @ 16khz. These things are pretty awesome ... One full CD for each voice (we're talking literally full -- like 650M of voice data), but if you dig TTS, it's worth it.

ms

Paging Joe D'Andrea...

I played with the web demo of those natural voices a long time ago, but never found an application using them. That "TextAloudMP3" program looks like a great way of converting Project Gutenburg text to audiobooks.

Alas (and alack), AT&T Natural Voices (a project I almost joined in 2002, go figure) is no longer offered directly to the public. However, the technology is licensed in a variety of applications.

It's especially odd that http://www.naturalvoices.com/ has a bunch of hyperlinks disabled but with no explanation why. I know the project manager and will touch base with him in the AM. Stay tuned ...

Good news! I have spoken with those in-the-know on the AT&T Natural Voices project and ... here's what I can divulge:

The future is in flux (well, of course)!
The server component is not going be offered to the public going forward.
The future of the desktop portion of Natural Voices looks more promising.
WRT the desktop, we're talking weeks, not months (yes, I'm allowed to mention that )

As the saying goes, everything in the world is tentative. When I learn more, I'll post it here!

Forgot to post this ... Here's where you can order the voices separately from one of their licensees:

https://www.regsoft.net/regsoft/vieworderpage.php3?productid=56116

Whoops - didn't ask about just the voices. Good one. Thanks!