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Some samples here: https://authors.apple.com/support/4519-digital-narration-audiobooks https://authors.apple.com/support/4519-digital-narration-aud.... It's goo

Some samples here: https://authors.apple.com/support/4519-digital-narration-audiobooks https://authors.apple.com/support/4519-digital-narration-aud.... It's good, but it would definitely get very monotonous to listen to for 10+ hours, and even in these short cherry-picked examples there are a couple kind of jarring tonal decisions. You'll also notice they avoided sampling any dialogue, presumably because these voices will read all characters in the exact same manner as the narration. I listen to a lot of audiobooks and I definitely notice and get annoyed when I don't like the narrator. I think I could maybe get used to this for one book but I would avoid it if possible, and I would really hate it if every book I listened to used this exact same style. I would say this is probably already good enough for short non-fiction articles, but not there yet for fiction. It is genuinely confusing (for me at least) when an audiobook narrator reads a phrase with the "wrong" emotion, or doesn't vocally distinguish between characters.

crazygringo 3y ago
Exactly -- the voices all sound like they belong to somebody emotionally "lobotomized", for lack of a better term. Every sentence has the exact same rhythm patterns, and every sentence that ends with a period ends on the exact same pitch. Listening to a single sentence is fine; listening to just ten sentences is monotonous and just feels strange. It's perfectly fine for Siri responses or reading back a dictated text message. Not for listening to a whole book though.
- TillE 3y ago
  I've listened to a lot of Books on Tape from the 80s and 90s where narrating in a mostly flat monotone was the norm, but even they would inject emotion and vary their delivery where appropriate. Good modern audiobooks are a true performance even when the narrator isn't doing a bunch of highly distinct voices. You can't replace that with AI any more than you can replace a great voice actor.

crazygringo 3y ago

Exactly -- the voices all sound like they belong to somebody emotionally "lobotomized", for lack of a better term. Every sentence has the exact same rhythm patterns, and every sentence that ends with a period ends on the exact same pitch. Listening to a single sentence is fine; listening to just ten sentences is monotonous and just feels strange. It's perfectly fine for Siri responses or reading back a dictated text message. Not for listening to a whole book though.

TillE 3y ago
I've listened to a lot of Books on Tape from the 80s and 90s where narrating in a mostly flat monotone was the norm, but even they would inject emotion and vary their delivery where appropriate. Good modern audiobooks are a true performance even when the narrator isn't doing a bunch of highly distinct voices. You can't replace that with AI any more than you can replace a great voice actor.