The Piper TTS - Lessac (English) model by Rhasspy is a compact text-to-speech (TTS) solution designed for generating natural-sounding English speech from written text. With only 0.02 billion parameters, this model is remarkably lightweight, making it highly efficient for local deployment on devices with limited computational resources. Despite its small size, the Piper TTS - Lessac delivers surprisingly high-quality audio, with clear and articulate speech that is suitable for a variety of applications such as voice assistants, e-readers, and accessibility tools. The model's efficiency is further enhanced by its support for ONNX quantization, which reduces the memory footprint and improves performance without significant loss in quality.
In its size class, the Piper TTS - Lessac stands out for its balance between performance and resource usage. It punches well above its weight, offering vocal clarity and naturalness that rival larger models while consuming minimal VRAM (0.1–0.1 GB). This makes it an excellent choice for users who need a reliable TTS solution but have constraints on hardware capabilities. Ideal users include developers working on embedded systems, Raspberry Pi projects, or any scenario where low power consumption and minimal hardware requirements are crucial. The MIT license also ensures that the model can be freely used and modified for both personal and commercial projects.
| Quantization | Bits | File Size | VRAM Needed | RAM Needed | Quality |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ONNX | 16 | 0.063 GB | 0.15 GB | 0.3 GB | 85% |
How to run Piper TTS - Lessac (English)
Pick a runtime — copy & paste. Commands are pre-filled with this model’s repo.
Fast on-device neural TTS. Single binary, ONNX runtime.
Piper home →- 1
Install
brew install piper # macOS — or grab the binary from GitHub releases - 2
Synthesize
echo "Hello from Piper" | piper --model piper-tts-lessac.onnx --output_file out.wav
Community benchmarks
Real tokens/sec reports from people running Piper TTS - Lessac (English) on actual hardware.
No community runs yet for this model. Be the first to submit your numbers.
how much VRAM do I need to run Piper TTS - Lessac (English)?
Piper TTS - Lessac (English) requires 0.15 GB VRAM minimum with ONNX quantization. For full precision you need 0.15 GB.
which quant should I pick?
Q4_K_M is the best quality/VRAM balance — ~92% of FP16 quality at ~25% the footprint. Q8_0 is near-lossless if you have the headroom.
What GPU do I need to run Piper TTS - Lessac (English)?
Piper TTS - Lessac (English) requires minimal GPU resources, needing only 0.1 GB of VRAM. It can run efficiently on most modern GPUs or even on CPU.
Is Piper TTS - Lessac (English) good for coding?
While Piper TTS - Lessac (English) is primarily designed for text-to-speech applications, it can be used to read out code, making it useful for accessibility or hands-free coding scenarios.
Piper TTS - Lessac (English) vs Llama 3.1 8B?
Piper TTS - Lessac (English) is a lightweight TTS model with 0.02B parameters, while Llama 3.1 8B is a large language model with 8B parameters. Piper TTS is optimized for generating high-quality speech, whereas Llama 3.1 8B is better suited for complex language tasks.
Can I run Piper TTS - Lessac (English) on a Mac?
Yes, Piper TTS - Lessac (English) can run on a Mac. It has minimal system requirements and can operate efficiently on both macOS and other operating systems.
How much VRAM does Piper TTS - Lessac (English) need?
Piper TTS - Lessac (English) requires only 0.1 GB of VRAM, making it suitable for devices with limited graphics memory.
Is Piper TTS - Lessac (English) censored?
Piper TTS - Lessac (English) is not censored. It generates speech based on the input text without any content filtering or censorship applied.
Is Piper TTS - Lessac (English) commercial-use allowed?
Yes, Piper TTS - Lessac (English) is licensed under the MIT License, which allows for commercial use as long as the license terms are followed.
Piper TTS - Lessac (English) context length?
The context length for Piper TTS - Lessac (English) is unknown, but it is designed to handle typical sentence lengths for text-to-speech applications.
Does Piper TTS - Lessac (English) support function calling?
Piper TTS - Lessac (English) is a text-to-speech model and does not support function calling. It focuses on converting text into speech.
Piper TTS - Lessac (English) quantization options?
Piper TTS - Lessac (English) supports quantization, which can reduce the model size and improve performance. The exact quantization options are not specified, but common options include INT8 and FP16.
Can Piper TTS - Lessac (English) run on CPU?
Yes, Piper TTS - Lessac (English) can run on CPU. While it may be slower than on GPU, it still performs well on modern CPUs.
Piper TTS - Lessac (English) fine-tuning?
Piper TTS - Lessac (English) can be fine-tuned to improve its performance on specific tasks or to adapt to different voices or accents, although this requires additional data and training resources.
Piper TTS - Lessac (English) system requirements?
Piper TTS - Lessac (English) has minimal system requirements: at least 0.1 GB of VRAM, 63 MB of storage, and a modern CPU or GPU. It runs on most devices, including low-end systems.
Piper TTS - Lessac (English) performance benchmark?
Performance benchmarks for Piper TTS - Lessac (English) show that it can generate high-quality speech in real-time on most modern hardware, with minimal latency and resource usage.
Piper TTS - Lessac (English) for RAG?
Piper TTS - Lessac (English) is not designed for Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG). It is a text-to-speech model focused on converting text into speech, not generating new content.
Piper TTS - Lessac (English) for agents?
Piper TTS - Lessac (English) can be used to provide speech output for virtual agents, chatbots, and other interactive systems, enhancing the user experience with natural-sounding voice interactions.
Piper TTS - Lessac (English) for coding vs general?
Piper TTS - Lessac (English) is suitable for both coding and general use. It can read out code for accessibility or hands-free coding, and its high-quality voice makes it ideal for general text-to-speech applications.
Piper TTS - Lessac (English) vs ChatGPT?
Piper TTS - Lessac (English) is a text-to-speech model, while ChatGPT is a conversational language model. Piper TTS converts text into speech, whereas ChatGPT generates text based on prompts.
Piper TTS - Lessac (English) download size?
The download size for Piper TTS - Lessac (English) is 63 MB, making it a lightweight model that can be easily downloaded and installed on most devices.
Best quant for Piper TTS - Lessac (English)?
The best quantization option for Piper TTS - Lessac (English) depends on your specific needs. INT8 quantization reduces the model size and improves performance, while FP16 maintains higher precision at a slight cost to performance.