---
library_name: transformers
license: cc-by-nc-4.0
tags:
- audio-to-audio
pipeline_tag: audio-to-audio
---

# Xcodec2 (Transformers-compatible version)


The X-Codec2 model was proposed in [Llasa: Scaling Train-Time and Inference-Time Compute for Llama-based Speech Synthesis](https://huggingface.co/papers/2502.04128).

X-Codec2 is a neural audio codec designed to improve speech synthesis and general audio generation for large language model (LLM) pipelines. It extends the original X-Codec by refining how semantic and acoustic information is integrated and tokenized, enabling efficient and high-fidelity audio representation.

Its architecture is based on X-Codec with several major differences:

- **Unified Semantic-Acoustic Tokenization**: X-Codec2 fuses outputs from a semantic encoder (e.g., Wav2Vec2-BERT) and an acoustic encoder into a single embedding, capturing both high-level meaning (e.g., text content, emotion) and low-level audio details (e.g., timbre).
- **Single-Stage Vector Quantization (VQ)**: Unlike the multi-layer residual VQ in most approaches (e.g., X-Codec, DAC, EnCodec), X-Codec2 uses a single-layer Feature-Space Quantization (FSQ) for stability and compatibility with causal, autoregressive LLMs.
- **Semantic Supervision During Training**: It adds a semantic reconstruction loss, ensuring that the discrete tokens preserve meaningful linguistic and emotional information — crucial for TTS tasks.
- **Transformer-Friendly Design**: The 1D token structure of X-Codec2 naturally aligns with the autoregressive modeling in LLMs like LLaMA, improving training efficiency and downstream compatibility.

## Usage example 

Here is a quick example of how to encode and decode an audio using this model:

```python 
>>> import torch
>>> from datasets import Audio, load_dataset
>>> from transformers import AutoFeatureExtractor, Xcodec2Model

>>> torch_device = "cuda" if torch.cuda.is_available() else "cpu"

>>> # load model and feature extractor
>>> model_id = "hf-audio/xcodec2"
>>> model = Xcodec2Model.from_pretrained(model_id).to(torch_device).eval()
>>> feature_extractor = AutoFeatureExtractor.from_pretrained(model_id)

>>> # load data
>>> dataset = load_dataset("hf-internal-testing/librispeech_asr_dummy", "clean", split="validation")
>>> dataset = dataset.cast_column("audio", Audio(sampling_rate=feature_extractor.sampling_rate))
>>> audio = dataset[0]["audio"]["array"]

>>> # prepare data
>>> inputs = feature_extractor(audio=audio, sampling_rate=feature_extractor.sampling_rate, return_tensors="pt").to(torch_device)

>>> # encoder and decode
>>> audio_codes = model.encode(**inputs).audio_codes
>>> audio_values = model.decode(audio_codes).audio_values
>>> # or the equivalent with a forward pass
>>> model_output = model(**inputs)
>>> audio_codes = model_output.audio_codes
>>> audio_values = model_output.audio_values
```

This model was contributed by [Steven Zheng](https://huggingface.co/Steveeeeeeen) and [Eric Bezzam](https://huggingface.co/bezzam).
The original code can be found [here](https://github.com/zhenye234/X-Codec-2.0), and original checkpoints [here](https://huggingface.co/HKUSTAudio/xcodec2).