Eloquence 64-bit for NVDA now supports a 44 kHz mode. It’s currently in preview and still being fine-tuned.
You can use the Sample Rate combo box in the Voices dialog to increase the default rate from 11 kHz to 44 kHz for clearer speech.
Unlike the 22 kHz mode in IBMTTS and ViaVoice, this mode doesn’t introduce pops, jitters, or unexpected voice resets.
Try the 16.1 upsampling preview release:
https://github.com/hozosch/eloquence_64/releases/tag/upsampling_preview
For more on the upsampling preview and author discussions check here:
https://github.com/fastfinge/eloquence_64/issues/88#issuecomment-4091293709
Release v16.1 upsampling preview · hozosch/eloquence_64

This version introduces the possibility to change the sample rate between 8, 11, and 44 KHz. 44 KHz is achieved by upsampling the 11 KHz signal externally via a CDLL. This is marked as preview unti...

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@amir I just tried installing this, and it broke my eloquence so bad that when NVDA restarted, it switched to the windows one core voices. when I try to switch back to eloquence, I get this error.

Synthesizer Error dialog Could not load the eloquence synthesizer.

@JamminJerry Try uninstalling your Eloquence add-on, restarting NVDA, and reinstalling the newer one.
@amir I wonder if the IBM tts is interfearing with it somehow? it is the only thing I can think of at this point.
@JamminJerry Ah, it sure does. They can't be enabled at the same time.
@amir and there we go. that fixed it. I had to remove the IBM tts, and the IBM libraries as well. now eloquence is working again.
@JamminJerry Great! Try the 44 kHZ mode, and I guess you'll like its clarity.
@amir it is pretty clear, but there is still a pop on the word food on a file name. it is a very interesting one, however the pop is a bit less than it was before. it is still popping on the o it looks like. but like I said, it is a little bit better.
@JamminJerry I don't have any of that popping to be honest, but I had lots of pops with IBMTTS's 22 kHZ mode. Even the word regedit, when read alone, could generate a pop there.
@amir the strange thing is I never ever had the pops on the IBM tts I was using, but I will say I like the pauses on the eloquence one a bit better than the IBM one. smile.
@JamminJerry @amir for me, the pauses are what is keeping me to ibm. if i could have less pauses on eloc 64 i'd switch to it.
@Aryan @JamminJerry But Eloq 64 now has the very same pauses as IBMTTS. IBMTTS has 3, and Eloq 64 has the very same 3 pause-related settings.
@amir @Aryan I think the pauses sound better on eloquence though. if you leave the shorten pauses to never the pauses are a bit longer than the IBM one.
@amir @Aryan @JamminJerry I wrote that setting that got merged into IBM, and am glad another driver picked it up. It's all about user preference. If they've implemented them the same, which mostly just chooses when to stick pause shortening commands in the stream, there shouldn't realistically be a difference unless the underlying library handles them differently. IBM's libraries handle them differently than SpeechWorks.