Save TTS to a file (or otherwise load the tts sound, then play something else, then play the tts sound immediately after)

I have a Node-RED flow for playing TTS notifications throughout my apartment. One of the things this flow does is play a chime immediately before calling the tts.cloud_say service. Unfortunately, it can take some time for the TTS sound to generate and download. Is there a way to wait until the TTS sound is loaded, then play something else, then play the TTS sound?

There is a Node-RED node that has the functionality I want, but it doesn’t integrate well with Home Assistant. I’d prefer a solution that involves the tts.cloud_say service, since that’s the best voice I’ve found so far.

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@dchawisher I also had this exact issue and solved it with the custom integration Chime TTS which solves the issue by creating a combined local file which avoids any lag :+1: