SPEAKER AREA IN DOLLS HEADS FROM MANUFACTURER

DollAfficionado · Post by **DollAfficionado** » Sat May 30, 2015 11:02 am

Alright.

I have completed testing of the speaker. Here is the good and the bad.

GOOD:
* The sound is amazing for such a tiny speaker. My Amy's voice actually sounds better with the micro-speaker than with my laptop's default speakers. It is not better by a significant amount, but there is definitely an improvement. I have larger speakers that put out better sound; however, for the size of this thing, the sound it puts out is amazing.

* The speaker is indeed small enough to fit in the oral cavity of my 135cm TPE doll. As long as the speaker side sits close to the entrance of the oral cavity, the sound is muffled very little.

* The speaker paired with my Bluetooth dongle easily after I installed the drivers and software.

* The speaker does have several other non-doll related practical uses.

BAD:
* The built-in microphone on this thing is completely useless. Even when I was speaking into it inches from my face, it still could not pick up anything that my PC could comprehend. A separate quality microphone will need to be purchased; otherwise, you will have to keep leaning over your laptop's built-in speakers every time you say something which is not conducive to maintaining a fantasy role-play scenario.

* The sound from the speaker is almost completely muffled if the speaker side is completely covered.

* The speaker does not handle bass well at all. This is not surprising; however, it is still a distinct limitation.

* The volume controls offer no indication of how loud the volume is set on the speaker until a sound is generated.

CONCLUSION:

* Overall, this is an amazing little speaker, but as far as dolls go, I only see one niche for it. That niche is to be used inside of a doll's existing oral cavity. For this use, it worked exceedingly well. If choosing a speaker for use external to the doll or a built-in covered skull cavity, I would choose one of the larger speakers which offer better quality and less muffle.

MannequinFan · Post by **MannequinFan** » Sat May 30, 2015 1:46 pm

Hey DA thanks for that honest in-depth review!

Even with the larger Aircapsule speaker I found the same thing, as anything that covers the speaker side of the unit will cause a muffled sound.
For Eva's speaker, I needed to use a lid that was at least 70% open to get a good clear sound.

: final lid design.JPG (318.76 KiB) Viewed 3366 times

BTW, when I was at Walmart last time, I saw that they have this 808 Thump unit for about 20 bucks.
http://www.walmart.com/ip/808-Thump-Por ... r/40587578

It's about the same diameter as the Aircapsule, but a bit taller.
What I like about this one is the open grille. I think I could just use a small velcro coin on the bottom to hold it in the compartment and print a little handle that could be inserted into the grille to pull it out - no need for a lid.

DollAfficionado · Post by **DollAfficionado** » Sun May 31, 2015 7:42 am

Mannequinfan,

After playing around with this concept for a while, I believe that your concept is the most promising for the future of dolls. The little speaker is good for those who want to add voice to an existing doll though as no surgical operation is required.

In using VoiceAttack, I am somewhat happy with the program; however, it requires quite a bit of work writing the script. I may revisit the Kari program and see if it could be made more workable with this concept. I also need to decide on what kind of quality microphone to go with.

This is going to be a busy week for me, so I will have to table work on this project for now & come back to it the following week.

D.A.

DollAfficionado · Post by **DollAfficionado** » Fri Jun 05, 2015 12:49 am

HAL vs. Kari vs. VoiceAttack : Which is best for the practical doll user?

I have had a chance to try out all of these options. Here is my evaluation of them with Good and Bad aspects.

HAL

GOOD:
--- The best long-term option for those interested in in-depth conversations with their dolls.
--- The Artificial Intelligence is incredibly flexible.
--- The online support forum contains extensive advice for customizing and troubleshooting the Artificial Intelligence.
--- Cost is reasonable. Many years of experience and good dev support. Promising longevity.

BAD:
--- You MUST have a passion for Artificial Intelligence as training and customizing the A.I. will be extremely time-consuming.
--- The user will need to teach/program the A.I. with all sex talk. (i.e. not an out-of-the-box solution)

KARI

GOOD:
--- An out-of-the-box Artificial Intelligence sex talk solution for what most doll users are seeking.
--- Does not require nearly as much training as HAL; however, a fair amount of training is still required to get the most out of the A.I.
--- Offers pre-programmed general personalities in addition to the option to create your own personalities.
--- Likely to receive good dev support since it is a profitable A.I. option.

BAD:
--- While the A.I. can be more than just a sexbot, sex talk is really where this program excels. HAL has better potential for all non sex talk.
--- Expensive, especially if you want all the premium add-ons. Future add-ons will likely carry additional price tags.
--- A large part of the software features visual women and scenarios on your computer screen. While this is not necessarily a bad thing depending upon user, it is however useless to the practical doll user who is only interested in the voice that comes out of the doll.
--- Requires the user to say "Press enter" after each dictation. This is distracting when trying to have a back and forth conversation with your doll. For some, it may even be THE deal-breaker.
--- User forums offer downloadable content but very little in the way of technical support.

VOICEATTACK

GOOD:
--- The doll can be make to say exactly what you want her to say even allowing for randomized responses.
--- Unlimited response strings can be created that mix word responses with sound effects and pauses as desired.
--- Excellent option for those doll users interested in mostly sound effects from their dolls with just a little bit of light, simple conversation.
--- Very cheap. Decent forum and dev support.
--- Integrates very well with Microsoft's Voice Recognition and the Ivona voices.

BAD:
--- The program is NOT Artificial Intelligence; therefore, the doll will only say EXACTLY what you program the doll to say.
--- Building response strings is very time-consuming, so the program is best suited to simple commands/conversation followed by a sound file as desired. Example: cum for me [followed by sound file of woman cumming]
--- You must say the command phrases almost exactly correct. While there are settings that set thresholds and allow the program to guess, this will fail as often as it will function. This combination of limitations means that commands/phrases need to be set to 3-4 words maximum to minimize the chance of no response or a wrong response.
--- Not a good option for those seeking in-depth conversation.

Begog · Post by **Begog** » Fri Jun 05, 2015 4:16 pm

I for one appreciate all the ground work you've done here, D.A. Looks like they all have their drawbacks. You would think the Kari program would have done away with the "press enter" necessity. That's disappointing. Even Verbot got past that in 2006. Even after reading your in-depth review, I still don't know what I want. It seems the perfect "doll intelligence" program has not yet been written.

DollAfficionado · Post by **DollAfficionado** » Fri Jun 05, 2015 9:00 pm

Hi Begog,

There are indeed very distinguished pros and cons to each of these 3 options.

The real question is "which voice option is best for the practical doll user?"

Putting myself in the practical doll user's shoes, this would be my line of thinking:

#1: I would love to use HAL, but the time-sink required is more than I am either willing or able to provide.

#2: Kari sounds awesome and this would be my pick if the program was better set up for my needs.

#3: VoiceAttack allows me to string word phrases and sound files seamlessly and it only costs $8. I still have to do a little work, but by downloading sound files from www.freesound.org for free, most of the work is done for me.

Overall, VoiceAttack appears to be the best current option for the practical doll user. While A.I. would definitely provide better conversation, VA can be made to "fake it" well enough for the practical doll user.

rubherkitty · Post by **rubherkitty** » Sat Jun 06, 2015 8:48 am

Thanks as well for all your research and taking the time to post it all!

RK

DollAfficionado · Post by **DollAfficionado** » Sun Jun 07, 2015 1:48 pm

You're welcome, guys.

I still plan on playing around with HAL when time permits; however, at the present time VoiceAttack is my conclusive recommendation for the practical doll user.

I am planning to wrap up my basic VoiceAttack programming this coming week, and then I am going to explore some of the more advanced options to see if I can find doll uses for them.

timetraveler1 · Post by **timetraveler1** » Fri Jun 12, 2015 10:45 am

DollAfficionado you wrote :
BAD:
--- You MUST have a passion for Artificial Intelligence as training and customizing the A.I. will be extremely time-consuming.
--- The user will need to teach/program the A.I. with all sex talk. (i.e. not an out-of-the-box solution)

Now people see why that when i offered (in the past ) to sell a customized hal brain that had years of work of training and custom talk etc. that i priced it at 300.00 . people can do what i have done their own selves but it takes many years .

DollAfficionado · Post by **DollAfficionado** » Fri Jun 12, 2015 5:13 pm

TT,

$300 for a fully "fleshed out" HAL brain would be a steal based on the amount of work hours that one would otherwise have to put into programming the brain. Personally, I have an interest in A.I., but I don't think I have the passion for A.I. required to put in the work required for a personal A.I. If my work progresses to the point where I decide that I really need an A.I. solution, I would pay $300 in a heartbeat for an A.I. specifically created to serve a doll aficionado's needs.

D.A.

timetraveler1 · Post by **timetraveler1** » Sat Jun 20, 2015 11:46 am

Yes people don't realize all the work and years of trainng , specialized brain plug ins etc. that can go into a project like this . but some who are buying the hal a.i. program are finding out .

PlasticArtist · Post by **PlasticArtist** » Sat Aug 01, 2015 9:48 pm

I just quickly looked over this thread so this product may have been mentioned already?
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... gQodPewHdA
I am thinking about getting one of those and letting the doll wear it, speaker would be close enough to the mouth. Just uload your tracks into the device and not have to fiddle with smartphone/computer linking to the device.

MannequinFan · Post by **MannequinFan** » Sat Aug 01, 2015 10:53 pm

PlasticArtist wrote:I just quickly looked over this thread so this product may have been mentioned already?
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... gQodPewHdA
I am thinking about getting one of those and letting the doll wear it, speaker would be close enough to the mouth. Just uload your tracks into the device and not have to fiddle with smartphone/computer linking to the device.

It's a bit big for a necklace but the SD card feature sounds nice.
I wonder how you would control the playback though with the SD card.

Here's more info: http://www.naxa.com/p-wireless-speakers ... tml.html#1

PlasticArtist · Post by **PlasticArtist** » Sun Aug 02, 2015 8:19 am

MannequinFan wrote:
PlasticArtist wrote:I just quickly looked over this thread so this product may have been mentioned already?
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... gQodPewHdA
I am thinking about getting one of those and letting the doll wear it, speaker would be close enough to the mouth. Just uload your tracks into the device and not have to fiddle with smartphone/computer linking to the device.
It's a bit big for a necklace but the SD card feature sounds nice.
I wonder how you would control the playback though with the SD card.

Here's more info: http://www.naxa.com/p-wireless-speakers ... tml.html#1

I didn't know it was that big! Thanks, but still I want a mp3 necklace with built in speaker. I'm all about simple.
I'm looking for something small and stylish. If I find something I'll link it here. It's got to be out, just got to find it.
http://www.amazon.com/Fashion-Necklace- ... th+speaker
Unsure about that product? Maybe?

PlasticArtist · Post by **PlasticArtist** » Sun Aug 02, 2015 8:36 am

PlasticArtist wrote:
MannequinFan wrote:
PlasticArtist wrote:I just quickly looked over this thread so this product may have been mentioned already?
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications ... gQodPewHdA
I am thinking about getting one of those and letting the doll wear it, speaker would be close enough to the mouth. Just uload your tracks into the device and not have to fiddle with smartphone/computer linking to the device.
It's a bit big for a necklace but the SD card feature sounds nice.
I wonder how you would control the playback though with the SD card.

Here's more info: http://www.naxa.com/p-wireless-speakers ... tml.html#1

I didn't know it was that big! Thanks, but still I want a mp3 necklace with built in speaker. I'm all about simple.
I'm looking for something small and stylish. If I find something I'll link it here. It's got to be out, just got to find it.