Thanks! It's a collab with rime.ai TTS. Unlike a lot of other TTS providers, they train on conversation, not podcasts/audiobooks so you get those disfluencies in speech that make it seem natural!
In fact, I had no clue about Cylinder Phonographs. Your discussion on Enrico Caruso motivated me to dig deeper. I found some cool gems:
1. History of the Cylinder Phonograph (https://www.loc.gov/collections/edison-company-motion-pictur...)
2. How the Cylinder Phonograph Works (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWLlbk_bI7E)
Looking forward to watching the recording of your Bay Area NLP talk!