MODEL · NVIDIA NEMO + M-BAIN (PIPELINE) · 2.5B (CANARY) + 1.5B (WHISPERX / WHISPER-LARGE-V3)
Canary-Qwen 2.5B + WhisperX
Canary-Qwen is an English-only ASR that doubles as a 2.5B LLM over its own transcripts — transcribe, then summarize/Q&A. WhisperX adds word-level timestamps + diarization. The near-frontier English-first pipeline.
License: Canary: CC-BY-4.0 · WhisperX: BSD-4 · Context: n/a · Released: July 2025 (Canary-Qwen)
The decision in five lines
- The call
- Buy — for voice
- Best for
- voice
- Runs on
- 23 hardware picks fit (cheapest: Intel Arc B580 12 GB · $249)
- Watch out
- Non-English audio — Canary-Qwen is English-only.
- Evidence
- Estimated
- 2.5B (Canary) + 1.5B (WhisperX
- PARAMETERS
- ENGLISH ASR + DIARIZATION PIPELINE
- TYPE
- —
- CONTEXT
- ~6 GB combined
- VRAM AT Q4
Where we recommend this
Every tier slot in the planner where this model is a top or alternate pick. Pulled live from planner.js — when the planner refreshes, this table stays current.
The call
Canary-Qwen is an English-only ASR that doubles as a 2.5B LLM over its own transcripts — transcribe, then summarize/Q&A. WhisperX adds word-level timestamps + diarization. The near-frontier English-first pipeline.
When not to use: Non-English audio — Canary-Qwen is English-only. For multilingual, stick to Parakeet-TDT or faster-whisper.
Runner notes
NeMo toolkit for Canary-Qwen, `whisperx` Python for the alignment + diarization stage. Budget ~2 h for first-time install.
Hardware that fits
Every hardware pick whose memory fits this model at the quant we recommend. Sorted cheapest-first — the top row is your best-value fit. Click through for the full buyer’s guide.
- Intel Arc B580 12 GBPerfect · 1.7× 12 GB · $249–$299
- NVIDIA RTX 3060 12 GBPerfect · 1.7× 12 GB · $280–$400
- Minisforum UM890 ProPerfect · 3.3× 32 GB DDR5 (shared) · $463–$580 all-in
- RTX 5060 Ti 16 GBPerfect · 2.2× 16 GB · $560–$610
- AMD Radeon RX 9070 XTPerfect · 2.2× 16 GB · $649–$779
- AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTXPerfect · 3.3× 24 GB · $760 used / ~$1,500 new
- Mac Mini M4 16 GBPerfect · 1.5× 16 GB unified · $799 (new floor) / $499–$599 (eBay/residuals)
- NVIDIA RTX 3090 (used, single)Perfect · 3.3× 24 GB · $950–$1,200
- NVIDIA RTX 5070 TiPerfect · 2.2× 16 GB · $980–$1,300
- NVIDIA RTX 5080Perfect · 2.2× 16 GB · $999–$1,400
- MacBook Air M5 24 GBPerfect · 2.2× 24 GB unified · $1,299–$1,699
- Mac Mini M4 Pro 24 GBPerfect · 2.2× 24 GB unified · $1,399
- Dual RTX 3090 (used)Perfect · 6.6× 48 GB · $1,800–$2,500 all-in
- Framework Desktop (Ryzen AI Max+ 395)Perfect · 11.9× 128 GB unified · $1,999–$2,851
- NVIDIA RTX 4090Perfect · 3.3× 24 GB · $2,200–$2,800
- M5 Pro MacBook Pro 48 GBPerfect · 4.5× 48 GB unified · $2,599–$3,099
- NVIDIA RTX 5090Perfect · 4.4× 32 GB · $2,910–$4,300
- Mac Studio M4 Max 64 GBPerfect · 5.9× 64 GB unified · $3,199
- NVIDIA RTX A6000 (48 GB, used)Perfect · 6.6× 48 GB ECC · $3,500–$4,500
- Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96 GBPerfect · 8.9× 96 GB unified · $3,999
- M5 Max MacBook Pro 64 GBPerfect · 5.9× 64 GB unified · $4,499
- NVIDIA DGX SparkPerfect · 11.9× 128 GB unified · $4,699
- Dual RTX 5090Perfect · 8.9× 64 GB (2×32) · $8,500–$10,500
Next step
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