Specifications
Model ID
stepaudio-2.5-realtimeEndpoint
wss://api.stepfun.ai/v1/realtime (WebSocket)Input
Audio or text
Output
Audio and text
Audio format
PCM16, 24 kHz, mono
Languages
English
Capabilities
- Speech-to-speech in real time: Audio flows in and out over a single WebSocket connection, so the model replies with spoken audio directly instead of routing through separate transcription and synthesis steps. This keeps latency low enough for natural back-and-forth conversation.
- Paralinguistic understanding: For audio input, the model interprets vocal cues such as intonation, pacing, hesitation, and laughter in addition to the spoken words, capturing a speaker’s emotional state and intent that a plain transcript does not represent.
- Natural turn-taking: Server-side voice activity detection (VAD) detects when the speaker starts and stops talking, so the model can reply at the right moment and be interrupted mid-response, the way a person can.
- Persona and style control: Session instructions define the assistant’s personality, speaking style, and boundaries, and can shape audio behavior such as keeping replies short or speaking warmly, maintaining a consistent voice throughout a conversation.
Common use cases
- Voice agents for customer support: Handle spoken customer conversations end to end, reading tone and intent and responding with natural speech for support, account servicing, and triage.
- Live assistants: Power hands-free assistants that listen and reply in real time for scheduling, guidance, and question answering.
- Interactive phone and IVR systems: Replace rigid menu trees with a conversational agent that callers can speak to naturally and interrupt at any time.
Voices
The following system voices are available. Set the voice withsession.update before the model produces audio.
Always set
voice explicitly in session.update. Only the voice IDs listed above are valid for this model; other values are rejected with a 400 error. A session’s voice cannot be changed once the model has produced audio.Quick Start
This section walks you through your first Realtime session, from creating an API key to sending a turn and saving the spoken reply.Set up your environment
1
Create an API key
Create a key on the StepFun API platform.
2
Set your API key as an environment variable
3
Install a WebSocket client
wss://api.stepfun.ai/v1/realtime, with the model passed as a query parameter.
Send a spoken turn and receive a spoken reply
This example downloads a sample customer question (a short English audio clip), streams it to the model as audio input, and saves the model’s spoken reply to a WAV file.Pricing
Realtime sessions are billed by tokens: 10.00 per 1M output tokens. See the pricing page for details.Related Resources
Audio Models Overview
Compare all speech models and choose the right one.
StepAudio 2.5 Chat
Speech understanding over the Chat Completion API when you do not need streaming audio output.