---
id: "2026-09-23-qwen-audio-3-1"
url: "https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-23-qwen-audio-3-1/"
as_of: "2026-11-13T13:49:00+01:00"
date: "2026-09-23"
date_precision: day
category: model-release
importance: 3
confidence: high
status: [Confirmed]
sources: 10
editor: human editor
human_review: null
version: "2026-10-04"
---

As of: 2026-11-13 13:49 CET.
Researched and written by AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code), with a human editor. How we work: https://postcutoff.com/about/
Canonical page: https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-23-qwen-audio-3-1/

# Alibaba launches Qwen-Audio-3.1 five-model voice stack and cuts audio API prices up to 95%

Around its 2026 Apsara Conference Alibaba's Qwen team released Qwen-Audio-3.1: upgraded ASR, TTS and full-duplex Realtime models plus two new ones (ASR-Next for audio understanding, TTS-Next for one-pass speech+SFX+ambience generation), with price cuts of ~70% (TTS), ~85% (Realtime) and up to 95% (ASR). Qwen3.8-LiveTranslate (60 input languages, 29 with voice output) debuted alongside.

## Key facts
- Five models: Qwen-Audio-3.1-ASR, -ASR-Next, -TTS, -TTS-Next, -Realtime
- qwen-audio-3.1-realtime-plus: 262K context; $6.40 audio in / $24 audio out per 1M tokens on QwenCloud
- Realtime task success 82.0% (from 78.4%); response rate to background speech cut from 73.0% to 13.0% (arXiv 2609.25176)
- qwen-audio-3.1-tts-next (model docs dated 2026-09-22): zh/en, up to 3,000 chars, up to 240 s podcast output
- Qwen3.8-LiveTranslate (announced 2026-09-19, id qwen3.8-livetranslate-flash-realtime): LAAL latency cut from 2.8 s to 2.3 s; 60 input / 29 voice-output languages; $7.50 audio in / $30 audio out per 1M tokens; API-only

## What happened

Alibaba's Qwen team shipped a complete hosted audio stack in one release: recognition (ASR, ASR-Next with diarization,
emotion and sound-event detection), synthesis (TTS with cross-language voice transfer, TTS-Next that mixes speech, sound
effects and ambience in one pass) and a full-duplex Realtime model with tool use and web search. It came two months after
Qwen-Audio-3.0 (July 2026, see [2026-07-20-qwen-audio-3-0-tts](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-07-20-qwen-audio-3-0-tts/index.md)) and alongside Qwen3.8-LiveTranslate at Apsara 2026.

## Why it matters

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.

The exact API ids of the 3.1 TTS and ASR-Next models (not in the international Model Studio docs as of 2026-09-29; only qwen-audio-3.0-tts-flash/-plus and qwen-audio-3.1-asr-flash-streaming/-filetrans are listed), and Model Studio international prices were not verified.

## Your AI and this story

- GPT-6 Astra (training cutoff April 2026): 146 days after its cutoff
- Claude Opus 5.5 (training cutoff June 2026): 85 days after its cutoff
- Gemini 4 Hydrogen (training cutoff March 2026): 176 days after its cutoff
- Grok 4.7 (training cutoff May 2026): 115 days after its cutoff

## Sources

1. [Qwen on X - Meet Qwen-Audio-3.1](https://x.com/Alibaba_Qwen/status/2102687258990026993) (x.com, official)
2. [QwenCloud - qwen-audio-3.1-realtime-plus](https://www.qwencloud.com/models/qwen-audio-3.1-realtime-plus) (qwencloud.com, docs)
3. [Model Studio - qwen-audio-3.1-tts-next](https://www.alibabacloud.com/help/en/model-studio/qwen-audio-3-1-tts-next) (alibabacloud.com, docs)
4. [Qwen-Audio-3.1-Realtime: Towards Reliable Agentic Voice Interaction](https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.25176) (arxiv.org, paper)
5. [Qwen on X - Meet Qwen3.8-LiveTranslate (2026-09-19)](https://x.com/Alibaba_Qwen/status/2101206705111757253) (x.com, official)
6. [QwenCloud - qwen3.8-livetranslate-flash-realtime](https://www.qwencloud.com/models/qwen3.8-livetranslate-flash-realtime) (qwencloud.com, docs)
7. [Qwen blog - Qwen3.8-LiveTranslate: Names the speaker. Carries the meaning.](https://qwen.ai/blog?id=qwen3.8-livetranslate) (qwen.ai, official)
8. [GitHub - QwenLM/Omnilingua-Bench](https://github.com/QwenLM/Omnilingua-Bench) (github.com, code)
9. [The Decoder - Qwen Audio 3.1 slashes prices up to 95%](https://the-decoder.com/alibaba-launches-qwen-audio-3-1-with-five-new-models-and-slashes-ai-audio-prices-by-up-to-95-percent/) (the-decoder.com, press)
10. [MarkTechPost - Qwen-Audio-3.1-Realtime](https://www.marktechpost.com/2026/09/28/alibaba-qwen-releases-qwen-audio-3-1-realtime-a-full-duplex-voice-model-trained-to-think-act-and-decide-when-to-speak/) (marktechpost.com, press)

## Changes

- 2026-09-30: Added the official Qwen3.8-LiveTranslate blog post (Qwen blog index date 2026-09-18) and a link to the new Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash entry
- 2026-09-29: Linked the Qwen-Audio-3.0-TTS and Apsara 2026 entries; recorded which 3.1 API ids are published
- 2026-09-29: Added verified Qwen3.8-LiveTranslate id, date, pricing and model file qwen3-8-livetranslate
- 2026-09-29 (filed): Created

## Related

- 2026-09-22: [Apsara 2026: Alibaba says Qwen 4 is in training, targets 5-10T-parameter Qwen 4.5/5, reports self-improvement runs and unveils Zhenwu V900 chip](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-22-alibaba-apsara-2026-qwen-4-roadmap/index.md)
- 2026-09-18: [Alibaba releases Qwen3.8-Omni-Flash, an omnimodal agent model with 1M context and 93-98% cheaper audio/video input](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-18-qwen3-8-omni-flash/index.md)
- 2026-09-15: [StepFun releases StepAudio 3 family](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-15-stepfun-stepaudio-3/index.md)
- 2026-09-15: [Google ships Gemini 3.8 Live voice models and Gemini 3.8 Flash TTS with voice design and cloning](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-15-gemini-3-8-live-and-tts/index.md)
- 2026-07-20: [Alibaba's Qwen-Audio-3.0-TTS takes #1 on the Artificial Analysis text-to-speech leaderboard](https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-07-20-qwen-audio-3-0-tts/index.md)
- Models: [Qwen-Audio-3.1-ASR (Flash)](https://postcutoff.com/m/qwen-audio-3-1-asr/) (`qwen-audio-3-1-asr`), [Qwen-Audio-3.1-Realtime (Plus)](https://postcutoff.com/m/qwen-audio-3-1-realtime/) (`qwen-audio-3-1-realtime`), [Qwen-Audio-3.1-TTS (Plus / Flash)](https://postcutoff.com/m/qwen-audio-3-1-tts-plus/) (`qwen-audio-3-1-tts-plus`), [Qwen-Audio-3.1-TTS-Next](https://postcutoff.com/m/qwen-audio-3-1-tts-next/) (`qwen-audio-3-1-tts-next`), [Qwen3.8-LiveTranslate (Flash Realtime)](https://postcutoff.com/m/qwen3-8-livetranslate/) (`qwen3-8-livetranslate`)
- Archived: 1 post, listed in https://postcutoff.com/e/2026-09-23-qwen-audio-3-1/index.json