[standardly]

Is the crispness of compressed audio really the benchmark of TTS improvements? I feel like that's an aside. A valid point, but not much of a detractor..

[nshm]

Yes, it is one of the important aspects. In particular if you use TTS to create an audiobook or in a video production.

[lozf]

Especially as any finished product may end up being compressed again. Lossy to lossy audio transcodes ALWAYS cause additional audio data to be lost.