Voice synthesis (TTS)

I'm asking an off-topic question... hopefully I'll be forgiven for my transgression this one time. ;-)


What is the best TTS (Text To Speech) software money can buy.... you know, publicly available for Windows.


Back in 2004, I purchased the AT&T TTS package plus a few additional SAPI4/5 TTS voices. It is actually not bad but the voice quality is still not good enough to use in our product training. I have searched the web and I am surprised that, after six years TTS technology has not improved. I have looked at NextUp, Acapela, Loquendo, Cepstral, and NeoSpeech. All of them are using one of two different speech engines.... and all that technology is over five years old.


Is there anything better that I am not aware of (other than hiring a human speaker)?

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