{"schema":"postcutoff/event@1","as_of":"2026-11-13T13:49:00+01:00","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-07-20-qwen-audio-3-0-tts/","md":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-07-20-qwen-audio-3-0-tts/index.md","disclosure":{"written_by":"AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code)","editor":"human editor","policy":"https://postcutoff.com/about/"},"license":null,"id":"2026-07-20-qwen-audio-3-0-tts","date":"2026-07-20","date_precision":"day","short_title":"Alibaba's Qwen-Audio-3.0-TTS takes #1 on the Artificial Analysis text-to-speech leaderboard","deck":null,"takeaway":"On 2026-07-20 Alibaba's Tongyi Lab released Qwen-Audio-3.0-TTS in Flash (real-time) and Plus (quality) tiers.","category":"model-release","category_label":"Model releases","importance":3,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Confirmed"]},"sources":[{"n":1,"title":"arXiv 2607.23938 - Qwen-Audio-3.0-TTS technical report","url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2607.23938","type":"paper","group":"primary","domain":"arxiv.org"},{"n":2,"title":"Model Studio - non-real-time speech synthesis (qwen-audio-3.0-tts-flash)","url":"https://www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/model-studio/qwen-tts","type":"docs","group":"primary","domain":"alibabacloud.com"},{"n":3,"title":"Artificial Analysis - text-to-speech leaderboard","url":"https://artificialanalysis.ai/text-to-speech/leaderboard","type":"docs","group":"primary","domain":"artificialanalysis.ai"},{"n":4,"title":"MarkTechPost - Qwen-Audio-3.0-TTS in Flash and Plus tiers across 16 languages","url":"https://www.marktechpost.com/2026/07/20/alibabas-tongyi-lab-releases-qwen-audio-3-0-tts-a-hosted-text-to-speech-model-in-flash-and-plus-tiers-across-16-languages/","type":"press","group":"press","domain":"marktechpost.com"}],"official":3,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-09-29","orgs":["Alibaba","Qwen"],"title":"Alibaba's Qwen-Audio-3.0-TTS takes #1 on the Artificial Analysis text-to-speech leaderboard","summary":"On 2026-07-20 Alibaba's Tongyi Lab released Qwen-Audio-3.0-TTS in Flash (real-time) and Plus (quality) tiers. It supports 16 languages and 20 Chinese dialect regions. The Plus tier ranked first on the independent Artificial Analysis TTS leaderboard while costing about $27.6 per 1M characters, roughly a quarter of Eleven v3's price. It was the first Chinese hosted TTS to top that arena.","key_facts":["API ids: qwen-audio-3.0-tts-flash, qwen-audio-3.0-tts-plus (Alibaba Cloud Model Studio)","Artificial Analysis TTS arena: Plus #1 at Elo ~1,236-1,237 vs Speechify Simba 3.2 ~1,234 (press, July 2026)","Technical report arXiv 2607.23938 (submitted 2026-07-27): 12.5 Hz tokenizer, five-stage LM + flow-matching training, SOTA claims on SEED-TTS-Eval and CV3-Eval","16 languages, 20 Chinese dialect regions, up to 3 minutes of one-pass long-form output, natural-language and inline-tag control, voice cloning and Voice Design","Plus: $27.59 per 1M characters vs Eleven v3 $100 (press)","The first-place ranking did not last: Inworld TTS-2, Cartesia Sonic 3.6 and Eleven v4 (2026-09-28) led later"],"key_numbers":[],"tags":["voice","speech","tts","leaderboard","china"],"science":null,"body_md":"## What happened\n\nAlibaba released a new generation of hosted TTS models built on a low-frame-rate tokenizer and a multi-stage training recipe,\nwith strong control features (instructions, inline tags, dialects, long-form output). Its Plus tier topped the Artificial\nAnalysis blind-listening arena at launch.\n\n## Why it matters\n\nA Chinese lab led the main independent TTS leaderboard at a fraction of ElevenLabs' price, which started the\nsummer-2026 TTS price and quality race. Alibaba followed two months later with Qwen-Audio-3.1 and price cuts of about 70%.","disputed":[],"related":[{"id":"2026-09-28-elevenlabs-eleven-v4","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-28-elevenlabs-eleven-v4/","date":"2026-09-28","date_precision":"day","short_title":"ElevenLabs launches Eleven v4 and Eleven v4 Turbo, #1 on Artificial Analysis TTS arena","deck":null,"takeaway":null,"category":"model-release","category_label":"Model releases","importance":4,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Confirmed"]},"sources":11,"official":7,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-09-29","orgs":["ElevenLabs"]},{"id":"2026-09-23-qwen-audio-3-1","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-23-qwen-audio-3-1/","date":"2026-09-23","date_precision":"day","short_title":"Alibaba launches Qwen-Audio-3.1 five-model voice stack and cuts audio API prices up to 95%","deck":null,"takeaway":"Chinese labs (Alibaba, StepFun, ByteDance) now field voice-agent models that top or approach GPT-Live / Gemini Live on public leaderboards at a fraction of the price, turning real-time voice into a price war.","category":"model-release","category_label":"Model releases","importance":3,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Confirmed"]},"sources":10,"official":8,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-09-30","orgs":["Alibaba","Qwen"]},{"id":"2026-08-31-inworld-realtime-tts-2","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-08-31-inworld-realtime-tts-2/","date":"2026-08-31","date_precision":"day","short_title":"Inworld Realtime TTS-2 reaches GA with audio-aware, prompt-directed speech","deck":null,"takeaway":"TTS-2 closes the loop between listening and speaking in a cascaded voice stack: the TTS hears the user, not just the transcript.","category":"model-release","category_label":"Model releases","importance":3,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Confirmed"]},"sources":5,"official":3,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-10-03","orgs":["Inworld AI"]},{"id":"2026-08-27-cartesia-sonic-3-6","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-08-27-cartesia-sonic-3-6/","date":"2026-08-27","date_precision":"day","short_title":"Cartesia Sonic-3.6 goes GA and tops the Artificial Analysis Speech Arena","deck":null,"takeaway":"Cartesia made Sonic-3.6 generally available on 2026-08-27 (beta 2026-08-17), three months after Sonic-3.5.","category":"model-release","category_label":"Model releases","importance":3,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Confirmed"]},"sources":4,"official":4,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-09-29","orgs":["Cartesia"]}],"people":[],"posts":[],"videos":[],"models":[{"id":"qwen-audio-3-0-tts","name":"Qwen-Audio-3.0-TTS (Flash / Plus)","url":"https://postcutoff.com/m/qwen-audio-3-0-tts/"}],"changes":[{"date":"2026-09-29","type":"filed","text":"Created"}],"provenance":{"agents":[{"model":"Claude Opus 5.5","maker":"Anthropic","tool":"Claude Code"}],"filed":"2026-09-29","run":null,"sources_read":null,"updated":"2026-09-29","human_review":null,"version":{"date":"2026-10-04"}},"gaps":[{"model_id":"gpt-6-astra","name":"GPT-6 Astra","cutoff":"2026-04","days_after":81,"in_training_data":false},{"model_id":"claude-opus-5-5","name":"Claude Opus 5.5","cutoff":"2026-06","days_after":20,"in_training_data":false},{"model_id":"gemini-4-hydrogen","name":"Gemini 4 Hydrogen","cutoff":"2026-03","days_after":111,"in_training_data":false},{"model_id":"grok-4-7","name":"Grok 4.7","cutoff":"2026-05","days_after":50,"in_training_data":false}],"short_url":null}