Round 2 changes: style prompt now demands a consistent American
accent with French names in the “wine register” (Merlot: silent final
consonant, English stress). Charon was too deep, so three lighter voices
audition on P1. P3 appears both prompt-steered and lexicon-respelled
(the model literally reads “Vair-duh-ran”, “Sant-oo-vairt”,
“Frahnk-toh”) to compare the two levers.
Round 2 · American register
Voice audition (same opening, four voices)
P1 · Iapetus (clear, mid-pitch)3.9 min
P1 · Algieba (smooth, mid)3.7 min
P1 · Schedar (even, mid)3.4 min
P1 · Charon (deep, round-1 voice, new style)3.5 min
French-name test: prompt vs lexicon (P3 Saint-Euverte)
P3 · Charon, prompt-steered only6.9 min · wine-register asked for in the prompt
P3 · Charon, lexicon-respelled8.5 min · names phonetically respelled in the synthesis text
P3 · Iapetus, prompt-steered only7.5 min
Round 1 · for reference
Original prompt (“correct French pronunciation”), voice Charon.
Verdict: right direction, but accent drift, names too French, voice too deep.
P1 · The opening3.8 min
P2 · The Verdurin clan3.8 min
P3 · The Saint-Euverte gauntlet7.5 min
P4 · The Guermantes dinner3.9 min
LibriVox · ruled out 7/20
Verdict: clearly amateur next to the AI candidates. Kept for reference.
J. M. Smallheer · Swann's Way (solo), Overture pt 115 min
J. M. Smallheer · Overture pt 218 min
Sayers + Coleman · Swann's Way (two readers), Overturefirst 15 min of 37
Michael O'Kelly · The Guermantes Way ch. 1afirst 15 min of 56
ScientificMethodist + KHand · Within a Budding Grovefirst 15 min of 29