voice_audio_multi/docs/models/qwen3_asr.md

Qwen3 ASR

For shared conversion guidance, see Qwen3 GGUF checkpoints.

Qwen3 ASR transcribes speech audio. Word timestamps are produced by running the recognized transcript through Qwen3 Forced Aligner, so --words-out requires the forced aligner model path. Long audio is split inside the model session before ASR inference; word timestamps are shifted back onto the original audio timeline.

Streaming mode accepts live audio chunks and emits buffered transcript deltas. Timestamp output remains offline-only because word alignment runs after the full transcript is known.

Offline audio_chunk_mode=auto is the default. For transcript-only ASR, Qwen3 ASR uses fixed chunks. When word timestamps are requested, it uses bundled Silero VAD internally to choose speech-aware chunks before running ASR and alignment. Streaming uses duration-based windows regardless of audio_chunk_mode.

Field	Value
Family	qwen3_asr
Model directory	models/Qwen3-ASR-0.6B or models/Qwen3-ASR-1.7B-hf
Task	asr
Modes	offline, streaming
Input	Speech WAV through --audio
Output	Text to stdout or --text-out; optional word JSON through --words-out with a forced aligner

audiocpp_cli --task asr --family qwen3_asr --model models/Qwen3-ASR-0.6B --backend cuda --audio speech_16k.wav --text "" --text-out transcript.txt

audiocpp_cli --task asr --mode streaming --family qwen3_asr --model models/Qwen3-ASR-0.6B --backend cuda --audio speech_16k.wav --text "" --request-option audio_chunk_seconds=5 --text-out transcript.txt

The native Hugging Face Transformers layout of Qwen/Qwen3-ASR-1.7B-hf is also accepted directly. It uses processor_config.json, tokenizer.json, and the model.audio_tower / model.language_model tensor namespaces; no model conversion is required:

audiocpp_cli --task asr --family qwen3_asr --model models/Qwen3-ASR-1.7B-hf --backend cuda --audio speech_16k.wav --text "" --text-out transcript.txt

Performance controls

Performance settings are session options. qwen3_asr.perf_mode=off preserves existing decoder behavior. cuda_perf applies the preset below; explicit session options always override its values, regardless of argument order.

Session option (qwen3_asr. prefix)	Default / off	cuda_perf
attention	mixed	flash
packed_projections	false	true
kv_cache_type	f32	f16
kv_cache_alignment	1	256
offline_batch_size	1	2

mixed retains manual prefill and flash cached decoding. auto uses the shared backend attention policy; eager disables flash for prefill and decode; flash selects flash for both. Attention selection does not affect the audio encoder or a separately loaded forced aligner.

Packing combines QKV and gate/up projections without changing stored weight precision. KV alignment above 1 uses cached attention graphs over an aligned visible prefix; 1 attends over the full reserved cache. Offline batch size accepts 1 or 2 and pairs independent chunks without changing chunk boundaries, ordering, or streaming scheduling. An unpaired tail is decoded individually. F16 KV, attention lowering and packed/batched execution may change numerical results. The preset can improve long-form throughput while slowing short requests; it is opt-in.

Select the preset, including two-chunk batching:

audiocpp_cli --task asr --family qwen3_asr --model models/Qwen3-ASR-0.6B --backend cuda --audio speech.wav --session-option qwen3_asr.perf_mode=cuda_perf --log

Keep the preset but decode one chunk at a time:

--session-option qwen3_asr.perf_mode=cuda_perf \
--session-option qwen3_asr.offline_batch_size=1

Enable only packed projections, leaving the other controls at their defaults:

--session-option qwen3_asr.packed_projections=true

To recover default behavior while a preset is selected, explicitly set all five controls to the Default / off column. Decoder scratch memory is reused whenever the batched runtime is used; this allocation policy is independent of the preset and does not change precision or model math.

QwenCleo-ASR (Egyptian Arabic)

QwenCleo-ASR is a Qwen3-ASR-1.7B fine-tune for Egyptian Arabic and Arabic-English code-switching. It uses the same qwen3_asr family, loader, and options; only the weights differ. The checkpoint is saved with tied word embeddings and therefore has no thinker.lm_head.weight; the loader reuses thinker.model.embed_tokens.weight for the output projection in that case. Model and integration by @Mohammedaly22.

Package	Format	Notes
qwencleo_asr_q8_0	GGUF Q8_0	Standalone GGUF, recommended for local inference.
qwencleo_asr_f16	GGUF F16	Closest to the original BF16 weights.
qwencleo_asr_safetensors	Safetensors	Original upstream checkpoint, loaded directly.

Pass --language Arabic, as recommended by the model card; quantized packages are less reliable at automatic language detection.

audiocpp_model_manager install qwencleo_asr_q8_0 --models-dir models
audiocpp_cli --task asr --family qwen3_asr --model models/QwenCleo-ASR-GGUF --backend cuda --audio egyptian_16k.wav --language Arabic --text "" --text-out transcript.txt

To build the GGUF packages from the upstream checkpoint:

audiocpp_gguf --input models/QwenCleo-ASR/model.safetensors --root models/QwenCleo-ASR   --output models/QwenCleo-ASR-GGUF/qwencleo-asr-q8_0.gguf --family qwen3_asr --type q8_0 --overwrite

Common Options (use directly)

Option	Values	Default	Meaning
qwen3_asr.lora	adapter directory or checkpoint file	not set	Load a PEFT LoRA at session creation. Encoder and decoder targets are supported; use an adapter trained for the same checkpoint size. Keep adapter_config.json beside the weights.
qwen3_asr.lora_scale	finite float	1	Strength multiplier applied after the adapter's alpha/r scaling.
--audio	WAV path	required	Speech audio; use 16 kHz WAV for the examples.
--text	text	empty string	Context prompt.
--language	language code	empty string	Recognition language hint.
--max-tokens	integer	checkpoint generation config; 512 fallback	Maximum decode tokens.
--audio-chunk-seconds	seconds	30 for streaming/transcription; 15 for offline timestamps/VAD	Target/max chunk length; must be > 0 when chunking or streaming. Ignored with audio_chunk_mode=none offline.
--audio-chunk-mode	auto, fixed, vad, none	auto	Let the model choose, force fixed chunks, force internal VAD chunks, or disable model-side chunking.
--text-out	TXT path	not set	Transcript output. The transcript is also printed to stdout.
--words-out	JSON path	not set	Word timestamp output. Requires qwen3_asr.forced_aligner_path.

The language, token limit, chunk mode, and chunk duration can also be supplied through request options language, max_tokens, audio_chunk_mode, and audio_chunk_duration_sec, respectively.

Request Options (use with --request-option)

Option	Values	Default	Meaning
return_timestamps	bool	false	Offline only: run the configured forced aligner after ASR. Streaming rejects true, even with an aligner configured. CLI --words-out enables this automatically; server requests must enable it explicitly or through default_request_options.
clamp_timestamps_to_audio	bool	false	Opt-in guard for --words-out: keep repaired forced-aligner word spans inside each local audio chunk. Default preserves existing timestamp repair behavior.
preserve_punctuation	bool	false	Preserve ASR punctuation in timestamped, chunked transcript text instead of rebuilding text from aligned words. Legacy qwen3_asr.preserve_punctuation remains accepted.

Session Options (use with --session-option)

Option	Values	Default	Meaning
qwen3_asr.forced_aligner_path	model path	not set	Qwen3 Forced Aligner model used to generate word timestamps after ASR.
qwen3_asr.vad_model_path	model directory	assets/framework/models/silero_vad	Optional internal VAD model override for timestamp-safe chunking. Legacy qwen3_asr.vad_path remains accepted.
qwen3_asr.weight_type	native, f32, f16, bf16, q8_0	native	Text decoder weight storage fallback.
qwen3_asr.audio_encoder_weight_type	native, f32, f16	native	Audio encoder weight storage.
qwen3_asr.text_decoder_weight_type	native, f32, f16, bf16, q8_0	inherits weight_type	Explicit text decoder weight storage override.
qwen3_asr.audio_encoder_graph_arena_mb	positive integer	128	Audio encoder graph arena in MiB.
qwen3_asr.text_decoder_prefill_graph_arena_mb	positive integer	256	Text decoder prefill graph arena in MiB.
qwen3_asr.text_decoder_decode_graph_arena_mb	positive integer	256	Text decoder cached-step graph arena in MiB.
qwen3_asr.text_decoder_weight_context_mb	positive integer	64	Text decoder weight tensor context in MiB.

Legacy session names qwen3_asr.forced_aligner_model_path (also qwen3_asr.aligner_model_path) and qwen3_asr.vad_model_path remain accepted. The normalized qwen3_asr.text_decoder_weight_type, qwen3_asr.text_decoder_prefill_graph_arena_mb, qwen3_asr.text_decoder_decode_graph_arena_mb, and qwen3_asr.text_decoder_weight_context_mb also accept their existing thinker_* spellings. Normalized names take precedence if both are supplied. These aliases work with existing GGUFs without reconversion.

Server: Transcript and Word Timestamps

Configure the aligner and VAD with paths visible to the server. Put request defaults, including language, in default_request_options, not session_options.

{
  "id": "qwen3-asr",
  "family": "qwen3_asr",
  "path": "/path/to/qwen3-asr-0.6b-q8_0.gguf",
  "task": "asr",
  "mode": "offline",
  "session_options": {
    "qwen3_asr.forced_aligner_path": "/path/to/qwen3-forced-aligner-0.6b-q8_0.gguf",
    "qwen3_asr.vad_model_path": "/path/to/assets/framework/models/silero_vad"
  },
  "default_request_options": {
    "language": "English",
    "return_timestamps": true
  }
}

Add that entry to the server config's models array, then upload the recording:

curl http://127.0.0.1:8080/v1/audio/transcriptions/details \
  -F model=qwen3-asr \
  -F language=English \
  -F file=@input.wav

The response includes text, words with start_sample/end_sample, and sample_rate. Divide sample offsets by sample_rate for seconds. The ordinary /v1/audio/transcriptions endpoint returns text and timing only, even when the model generates word timestamps. Timestamp generation uses Silero VAD in the default audio_chunk_mode=auto path.