@afcorson I have used Cereproc voices and I don't recall any slow downs. It should operate just as the Microsoft David voice.

hi all

i used the cepstral voice of david but you can also ad aliasses in cepstral window . you can change the voice pitsch ,speed ,light or low . then you can ad this , in your ARC .

I tried Cereproc Lawrence and Millie and my Win11 laptop. The response time was a joke. So there's a mystery there.

maybe deleting your browser hystory or updates on your laptop ?

I just used the basic speech setting skill since we can use all those new effects like chorus,reverb and flanger effect. I was able to make the default David voice sound exactly like the Proteus computer/robot in the Demon Seed movie, very freaky coming out of my Roomba!