I see, I'll have to have a deeper look. (I'm on Linux, so I think my options are espeak and possibly Festival.)
Thanks very much for the perspective on NVDA. I'll definitely have to give it a go! I've been interested specifically in Web accessibility for quite a while.
In regard to the idea that Jaws is best in class, I'm inclined to disagree. Jaws might be a bit better in MS Office applications and UIA support, I haven't used it for years. However, NVDA has the better web story and until recently it was the screen reader that was actually working with VS Code.