Kindle vs Mac Text 2 Speech

This is a comparison of text to speech functionality in Kindle2 and OSX. The new Alex voice in Leopard was used for this test. The Kindle audio sample was take from this youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3bv0C8IS-I

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• kindle
• text2speech
• OSX
• Leopard
• Alex

[Halbmond]

I think OSX's voice is more fluently, but Kindle's emphasis on words (especially at the end of sentences) is better. Both are impressive. Does Kindle have a female voice, too?

[flightstarpilot]

@Halbmond agreed. A combination of their best features would be ideal.

[flightstarpilot]

I find the OSX voice to be better too and my four year old who can't read yet agrees. He 'reads' emails and websites by highlighting text and pressing a key configured to start the text2speech.

[immum]

how did you configure a hot key to turn tts on in osx?

[flightstarpilot]

@immum hope you figured that out but just in case - got to System Preferences > Speech and enable Speak selected text when key is pressed.

[SupportWeThePeopleKB]

Thanks for this comparison. Alex of Apple wins, but Kindle Ken is not bad. I want to use the kindle TTS feature for students whose decoding is weak for pre-practice on passages.

I find the "default" speed to be the only kindle voice that is natural. It is a poor reader of poetry. This weakness is forgiven because of the many benefits of having the TTS feature. The truly amazing voices are coming from Acapela Group in Europe. Wow! Give an American voice French text for a laugh.

[mollesjohn]

Anybody besides myself notice that Alex parsed the word READ correctly while Kindle looks like it doesn't check for syntax and pronounced it like the past tense of the same verb?

[the0pc0helper]

Cake Pwn

[Zangoose000]

Is it my imagination, or does that "amazonkindle" have background noise too?

[mpwelk]

Nice - exactly what I was looking for and you even threw in Alex at no extra charge :)