FWIW, I now use: /usr/bin/espeake -a 40 -s 120 "$@"

This works pretty well.

Now, if only I could figure out how to get "media player" to not totally take over the sound system. To get directions *and* music i have to use MediaBox, which is very CPU intensive; on top of Mapper itself, which isn't exactly lightweight, it causes problems with espeak.

-Robin