small models struggle with prosody due to limited capacity. this version does much better than the precious one and is the best among other <25MB models. Kokoro is a really good model for its size, its competitive on artificial analysis too. i think by the next release we should have something kokoro quality but a fifth of the size. Adding control for rhythm seems to be quite important too, and we should start looking at that for other languages.

Listened to the video examples, sounded very good though wasn't terribly challenging text.

If only I could have that in Norwegian my SO would be pleased.

Also I totally misremembered regarding Kokoro TTS. It's good, but not what was butchering Norwegian. Forgot which one I was thinking of, maybe it was the old VITS stuff Rhaspy uses. Points stand, the voice was good but could barely understand what was said.