BestSpeech uses bit masking for retrieving phoneme segmental features from a lookup table. Here are my notes thus far: first bit is v/c switch (0 - vowel, 1 - consonant) second bit is plosive flag third bit is voicing flag fourth bit is alveolar flag fifth bit is affricate flag sixth bit is nasal flag seventh bit is strident flag (pertains to sibilants and some fricative sounds) eighth bit is v/c switch but in reverse (0 - consonant, 1 - vowel)