### System details

AMD Ryzen 5 9600X, GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER, Omarchy 4.0.2-1

### What's wrong?

# Brave has no speechSynthesis voices on a default Omarchy install

**Component:** defaults / Brave / speech-dispatcher  
**Severity:** minor (Chromium works; Brave TTS / Web Speech does not)

## Summary

On a stock Omarchy system, Brave exposes an empty Web Speech voice list. Sites that use `speechSynthesis` (including Google Translate’s Listen button) show a playing state but produce no audio.

Chromium works on the same machine because it still uses Google cloud TTS voices. Brave does not ship those voices, and Omarchy does not install a local speech backend by default.

## Environment

- Distro: Omarchy (Arch-based)
- Browser: Brave (repo package, not Flatpak)
- Comparison: Chromium — Translate Listen works
- Audio: PipeWire + WirePlumber (not required to reproduce; failure happens before a sink-input is created)

## Expected

- `speechSynthesis.getVoices()` returns at least one voice
- `speechSynthesis.speak(new SpeechSynthesisUtterance("test"))` is audible
- Google Translate → Listen plays audio

## Actual

```js
speechSynthesis.getVoices()  // []
```

Translate Listen animates, Network shows no media / `translate_tts` request, `pactl subscribe` only shows a Pulse client appear and vanish, and `pactl list sink-inputs` never lists Brave. Silence on both Bluetooth and wired output.

Telemetry calls such as `play.google.com/log` and `www.google.com/gen_204` may show `ERR_BLOCKED_BY_CLIENT`. Those are unrelated.

## Reproduction

1. Fresh Omarchy install (no `speech-dispatcher` / `espeak-ng` in the default set).
2. Open Brave → https://translate.google.com
3. Click Listen.
4. In DevTools console:

```js
speechSynthesis.getVoices()
speechSynthesis.speak(new SpeechSynthesisUtterance("test"))
```

5. Repeat in Chromium — audio works there.

## Workaround

```bash
sudo pacman -S speech-dispatcher espeak-ng
systemctl --user enable --now speech-dispatcher
```

Fully quit Brave, reopen, and confirm `getVoices()` is non-empty. Translate Listen then works.

## Suggested fix

Preinstall and enable a speech backend for desktop use, or document it next to Brave:

- `speech-dispatcher`
- `espeak-ng` (or another engine Omarchy prefers)
- `systemctl --user enable --now speech-dispatcher`

Brave intentionally does not ship Google TTS voices. Chromium does. Without a local dispatcher, Web Speech on Brave is a no-op.

## Notes

Not caused by PipeWire Bluetooth profile settings, uBlock, or Brave Shields (reproduced with those disabled). YouTube in Brave is fine; only the Web Speech / Translate Listen path was broken.