Yeah I agree that the TTS is good, especially if you consider it is auto-generated. But I don’t mind the interpretation to make it more interesting.
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Well, I’d say TTS is ok-ish for short sentences, but the speech / elocution / diction becomes really awkward with longer ones such as this one, for 過ごす :
" 今日も元気に過ごしている子供たちがいつか事故や病気で死んでしまうかもしれないと想像するだに胸が苦しくなります。"
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I don’t feel like Haru’s recordings were any worse than the current male recordings quality wise. Throwing them away seems counter productive and reduces value of this product. If the team hates them so much, they can be hidden behind an option in settings or something.
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I’ve been trying to give the new recordings a chance over the past month or so, but honestly at this point I just don’t even play the audio. Haru’s recordings were one of the main points that attracted me to Bunpro when I first tried it. In my opinion, the value of recordings like this to the user in a language learning service, and by extension the professionalism that the recordings contribute to the service, comes from two criteria:
1. Practical use
Haru’s recordings sound like a real person (as in not a fictional character) just saying the sentences while sitting in a normal room. The new recordings certainly have a more professional acting feel, and the audio has the distinctive sound of someone speaking very close to an expensive microphone in a studio with perfect mixing and mastering. But this is not how Japanese sounds when having a real life conversation. Other Japanese learning resources often have overly professional, unrealistic recordings, and I always thought Haru’s recordings were much more practical and set Bunpro apart, so I hate to see Bunpro going in that direction too.
2. Pleasantness
From the standpoint of pure audio quality, the new recordings are “better,” but I think it’s too much. Some people have said they’re too loud, but turning down my volume, I think the issue goes beyond that to compression and EQ and such. Maybe this kind of audio would be appropriate for some sort of narration in anime over background sounds, or if it was the lead vocal in a song, but to listen to completely on its own for language learning purposes, it sounds too squashed and powerful (beyond just the volume) to be pleasant to listen to for me. Maybe even more than the audio itself, I also just really like the sound of Haru’s voice, which of course is very subjective, but it sounds like many other users feel the same. I never thought her recordings were lacking in quality in any way. They seemed fine and clear, and if anything, more pleasant to listen to because they sound closer to hearing someone’s voice face to face as opposed to very edited audio.
This is not to say anything bad about the new voice actor or audio engineer—everyone is clearly very good at what they do. And of course, I’m grateful to the Bunpro team for continuing to put in work on Bunpro. This is just not the place for that kind of audio and acting, at least for me as someone learning Japanese for the purposes of professional and everyday use. Other users may feel the opposite. But please at least just give us the option to switch back. I really don’t think that would be less professional in any way. If anything, I think it would be more professional, considering the number of users that seem to want this.
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As if my mind was being read. Hopefully our voices will be heard and won’t remain voices in the desert. Having more available voices only adds more value, so it’s a win/win for everyone.
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Just adding that I prefer the old one too, and would very much appreciate an option!
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賛成だよ!
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I also prefer the original voice recordings as well. It would be nice to have an option to go back.
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No chance at all, then? 
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Vox clamantis in deserto…
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Umm, that’s not the point, though. The point is to have an option to switch back across the board.
This seems to be a case of:
I just came back to my grammar studies, and I immediately noticed the recordings change. Others already stated the reasons and rationale, I can just second these sentiments. For me, it didn’t actually feel like the audio quality was that bad at all.
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We actually had been discussing this within the team and the main issue is that we are often making changes to sentences here and there and because we will only be rerecording the one audio, the coverage will slowly decrease until only a few of the original sentences remain unchanged.
Even now, the coverage is already down because we adjusted a lot of sentences before doing these new recordings.
From a long time user’s perspective, I can understand why that is probably not the end of the world, but for new users who come across it, they would have no idea why only some sentences seem to have an alternate voice and others don’t.
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hush hush they will probably not care too much.
And I think people who would like to have an option to select Haru’s voice will be cool with the voice/text discrepancy. It even presents a challenge of sorts, to figure out the change. It can come with a little disclaimer, similar to the one when, say, there’s only a male recording and you’re trying to select the female one. I speak for myself here but…
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ラストチャンスかもしれませんが…
はるなさんの 「録音記念庫」 を建てることができますか。
御願い致します
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I think it’s just the 2 of us, Pablo-san…
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そうですよね… 
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Three!
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Four, and probably a lot more
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Cheeky number 5 here 
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