Anyone doing TTS without lag in audio?

[IVB]

The issue with my setup of the Concerto amp driving in-wall speakers to do TTS is that there's a material lag to get the concerto to turn on a zone, switch to the TTS source, then have the PC speak it. Might be my Concerto dying, but after every command I need to insert in a half second delay as either the Concerto doesn't catch the command or it goes red. That means a delay of 2 to 3 seconds. For scheduled bits (ie morning wakeups) it was irrelevant, but I stopped using CQC for on-demand TTS stuff.

This is the original Concerto, bought used almost 10 years ago, and half the expander zones are dead. Before I dump huge cash on upgrading it I want to know if people have been able to find a piece of equipment where you can turn on/set source/announce TTS with an acceptable lag time. Esp if I use this to respond to voice-recognition questions, 3 seconds is long enough to be damn annoying (esp as the Echo is typically sub-second).

So, do you have rapid response from your multi-zone equipment? If so, what are you using?

[Dean Roddey]

For CQC Voice, since you have to have a PC in the room anyway, I'd just get some very inexpensive powered speaker and run it off of the audio card outputs on that machine, so that it's always there. And CQC Voice isn't going to do any setup for you when it wants to speak. it assumes everything is ready. Don't get a bluetooth one unless you know you can force it to stay on. Lots of BT speakers will turn off after some period of inactivity.

[IVB]

That won't work for 2 reasons:
1) Aesthetics. Literally zero chance the wife lets me yank a wireless Echo only to put in a wired *and* a wired microphone. She doesn't mind the Echo as it's a single device for microphone & speaker and the dot is tiny & wireless.
2) I need to solve the larger uber-lag issue so TTS is usable. I stopped using it due to the lag, the stuff I was doing with it I'm currently using the Echo.

Are the newer controllable whole house multi-zone solutions also 3 seconds to turn on a zone, switch to a given source? I always thought it was because my equipment was several years old when I bought it, so positively ancient now.

[Dean Roddey]

But the thing is, you won't have any means to turn on a zone and switch to a given source. There's nothing that's going to give you anything to trigger off of to make that change. Voice really needs an always available means to speak. You could of course use a wireless speaker, just probably not Bluetooth because of the power off issues. I'm assuming there are other forms of wireless speakers that you can use with Windows, right?

[IVB]

oh, I thought I could have CQCVoice do some actions first then speak. I might have to just suck it up and stick with the Echo.

[Dean Roddey]

It wouldn't be practical to have it have to run actions before it replies. That would sort of destroy the usefulness of it to be honest. It would become very slow to respond.