I would call myself an expert, I use text to speech everyday. A lot of programs are cheap to buy, its the voice packs that are expensive. Dragon naturally speaking along with being expensive, a handful of the voices don't say words correctly and some of them will even skip over the words entirely!
The best program I used and still use is this program you can try for free called "TextAlloud". I downloaded the voice "sam" which isn't the most real sounding, but he says things the most clear with great accuracy.
Textalloud has all sorts of options too. For example you can have a text file saved as an mp3 and listen to it on a cd or ipod. I love it so maybe you will to!
Check out Textalloud
here!