Siri Voice Quality TERRIBLE

[mark0pol0]

Just updated a couple hours ago and can't seem to figure out why my Siri isn't speaking with the same quality sound of English as it does on my iPhone. It sounds like the iPhone 4 Siri or something. Tried to download higher quality voice in the Accessibility -> Dictation settings, but that didn't apply to Siri's voice. Looked online and it appears that virtually no one is having this issue.

 

[blasto2236]

Evidently it eventually downloads the HQ voice after install. Try restarting, or if you use a laptop connecting it to power and restarting. You should get the higher quality voice soon.

Low quality Siri voice?

 

[dysamoria]

i finally upgraded to Sierra... It's been weeks now and the Siri voice still sucks.

 

[dysamoria]

If anyone else comes looking: i checked "Download newly available updates in the background" in the App Store System Preferences, waited a while (noticed softwareupdated was present and active in Activity Monitor), then toggled Siri on and off, swapped to another language and then back to American English. After this fiddling (the same on two machines with the poor quality voice), i now have the correct high-quality Siri voice.

It seems Apple expects automatic updates to be enabled and has tied system component downloads to this function.

EDIT: i found this solution on some other site where people were complaining about the same problem. i didn't take note of the site and cannot find it in my extensive internet history, or i'd point to it here.