PocketTTS emits 16-bit PCM WAV (16 kHz mono). WAV is natively supported
on all browsers including iOS/macOS Safari, so the ffmpeg MP3 transcode
is unnecessary for the streaming path.
Using format=wav for PocketTTS voices eliminates the ffmpeg subprocess
startup delay (~200–400 ms) and a pipeline stage, giving lower latency
to first audio frame. Kokoro and CF AI continue using MP3 (they output
MP3 natively or via the OpenAI-compatible endpoint).
The runner (MinIO storage) is unaffected — it still stores MP3 for
space efficiency.
Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
