MODEL · STEPFUN · 8B (LALM)
Step-Audio 2 mini
StepFun's 8B speech-to-speech LALM trained on 8M+ hours of audio. Competitive with GPT-4o-audio on speech recognition + S2S translation benchmarks, fully open-source weights.
License: Apache 2.0 · Context: n/a · Released: August 29, 2025
The decision in five lines
- The call
- Buy — for voice
- Best for
- voice
- Runs on
- 16 hardware picks fit (cheapest: Minisforum UM890 Pro · $463)
- Watch out
- Streaming real-time chat on consumer hardware — 8B LALM is heavy.
- Evidence
- Estimated
- 8B (LALM)
- PARAMETERS
- END-TO-END SPEECH-TO-SPEECH
- TYPE
- —
- CONTEXT
- ~16 GB (FP16)
- 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
StepFun's 8B speech-to-speech LALM trained on 8M+ hours of audio. Competitive with GPT-4o-audio on speech recognition + S2S translation benchmarks, fully open-source weights.
When not to use: Streaming real-time chat on consumer hardware — 8B LALM is heavy. MiniCPM-o 2.6 int4 is lighter for voice-in-voice-out on 8 GB VRAM.
Runner notes
GitHub `stepfun-ai/Step-Audio2` bundled inference scripts. No Ollama route yet. The mini-Think variant (September 2025) adds reasoning-trace output; the full 30B model promised on the StepFun roadmap was still unreleased as of late April 2026.
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.
- Minisforum UM890 ProGood · 1.4× 32 GB DDR5 (shared) · $463–$580 all-in
- AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTXGood · 1.4× 24 GB · $760 used / ~$1,500 new
- NVIDIA RTX 3090 (used, single)Good · 1.4× 24 GB · $950–$1,200
- MacBook Air M5 24 GBRequires tweak · 1.2× 24 GB unified · $1,299–$1,699
- Mac Mini M4 Pro 24 GBRequires tweak · 1.2× 24 GB unified · $1,399
- Dual RTX 3090 (used)Perfect · 2.7× 48 GB · $1,800–$2,500 all-in
- Framework Desktop (Ryzen AI Max+ 395)Perfect · 4.9× 128 GB unified · $1,999–$2,851
- NVIDIA RTX 4090Good · 1.4× 24 GB · $2,200–$2,800
- M5 Pro MacBook Pro 48 GBPerfect · 1.8× 48 GB unified · $2,599–$3,099
- NVIDIA RTX 5090Perfect · 1.8× 32 GB · $2,910–$4,300
- Mac Studio M4 Max 64 GBPerfect · 2.4× 64 GB unified · $3,199
- NVIDIA RTX A6000 (48 GB, used)Perfect · 2.7× 48 GB ECC · $3,500–$4,500
- Mac Studio M3 Ultra 96 GBPerfect · 3.7× 96 GB unified · $3,999
- M5 Max MacBook Pro 64 GBPerfect · 2.4× 64 GB unified · $4,499
- NVIDIA DGX SparkPerfect · 4.9× 128 GB unified · $4,699
- Dual RTX 5090Perfect · 3.6× 64 GB (2×32) · $8,500–$10,500
Next step
Find-by-model — see what hardware runs this→