speakturbo-tts

$2a

The first execution takes 2-5 seconds while the daemon starts and loads the model into memory. Subsequent calls are ~90ms to first sound.

# First run (slow - daemon starting)

speakturbo "Starting up"  # ~2-5 seconds

# Second run (fast - daemon already running)

speakturbo "Now I'm fast"  # ~90ms

Usage

# Basic - plays immediately (default voice: alba)

speakturbo "Hello world"

# Save to file (no audio playback)

speakturbo "Hello" -o output.wav

# Save to specific file

speakturbo "Goodbye" -o goodbye.wav

# Quiet mode (suppress status messages, still plays audio)

speakturbo "Hello" -q

# List available voices

speakturbo --list-voices

Available Voices

Voice

Type

alba

Female (default)

marius

Male

javert

Male

jean

Male

fantine

Female

cosette

Female

eponine

Female

azelma

Female

Performance

Metric

Value

Time to first sound

~90ms (daemon warm)

First run

2-5s (daemon startup)

Real-time factor

~4x faster

Sample rate

24kHz mono

Architecture

speakturbo (Rust CLI, 2.2MB)

    │

    │ HTTP streaming (port 7125)

    ▼

speakturbo-daemon (Python + pocket-tts)

    │

    │ Model in memory, auto-shutdown after 1hr idle

    ▼

Audio playback (rodio)

Text Input

• Encoding: UTF-8

• Quotes in text: Use escaping: speakturbo "She said \"hello\""

• Long text: Supported, streams as it generates

Output Path Security

The -o flag only writes to directories that are on the allowlist. By default, these are:

• /tmp and system temp directories

• Your current working directory

• ~/.speakturbo/

If you need to write elsewhere, use --allow-dir:

speakturbo "Hello" -o /custom/path/audio.wav --allow-dir /custom/path

To permanently allow a directory, add it to ~/.speakturbo/config:

mkdir -p ~/.speakturbo && echo "/custom/path" >> ~/.speakturbo/config

The config file is one directory per line. Lines starting with # are comments.

Exit Codes

Code

Meaning

0

Success (audio played/saved)

1

Error (daemon connection failed, invalid args)

When to Use

Use speakturbo when:

• You need instant audio feedback (~90ms)

• Speed matters more than voice variety

• Built-in voices are sufficient

**Use speak instead when:**

• You need custom voice cloning (Morgan Freeman, etc.)

→ speak "text" --voice ~/.chatter/voices/morgan_freeman.wav

• You need emotion tags like [laugh], [sigh]

• Quality/variety matters more than speed

See the speak skill documentation for full usage.

Troubleshooting

No audio plays:

# Check daemon is running

curl http://127.0.0.1:7125/health

# Expected: {"status":"ready","voices":["alba","marius",...]}

# Verify by saving to file and playing manually

speakturbo "test" -o /tmp/test.wav

afplay /tmp/test.wav  # macOS

aplay /tmp/test.wav   # Linux

Daemon won't start:

# Check port availability

lsof -i :7125

# Manually kill and restart

pkill -f "daemon_streaming"

speakturbo "test"  # Auto-restarts daemon

First run is slow:

This is expected. The daemon needs to load the ~100MB model into memory. Subsequent calls will be fast (~90ms).

Daemon Management

The daemon auto-starts on first use and auto-shuts down after 1 hour idle.

# Check status

curl http://127.0.0.1:7125/health

# Manual stop

pkill -f "daemon_streaming"

# View logs

cat /tmp/speakturbo.log

Comparison with speak

Feature

speakturbo

speak

Time to first sound

~90ms

~4-8s

Voice cloning

❌

✅

Emotion tags

❌

✅

Voices

8 built-in

Custom wav files

Engine

pocket-tts

Chatterbox