# Voice & Audio Systems

> Capture, codecs, streaming, speech recognition, synthesis, turn detection, noise handling, latency, and conversational UX.

Canonical: https://learn.significanthobbies.com/curriculum/concepts/voice-audio-systems

Capture, codecs, streaming, speech recognition, synthesis, turn detection, noise handling, latency, and conversational UX.

- Difficulty: core
- Tracks: Multimodal & Spatial Computing

## Mental model

Voice systems are real-time pipelines. Audio framing, endpointing, ASR, reasoning, TTS, interruption, and playback each consume the latency budget.



## Primary sources

- [Web Audio API](https://www.w3.org/TR/webaudio/) (doc)

## Practice

### Design exercise: Voice & Audio Systems

Capture, codecs, streaming, speech recognition, synthesis, turn detection, noise handling, latency, and conversational UX. Implement designOutline() returning non-empty values for: audioPipeline, turnDetection, latencyBudget. Each value must name a concrete mechanism or decision.

**Expected evidence:** A design outline with audioPipeline, turnDetection, latencyBudget plus an explicit failure mode or trade-off.

## Review prompts

- What is endpointing, and why does it dominate perceived latency in a voice agent?

## Build evidence

- **Synthesize: AI Models & Training** — Move from transformer foundations through pre-training, fine-tuning, post-training, compression, and evaluation. Produce one working system, benchmark, or evidence-backed design that integrates the path.
- **Synthesize: Multimodal & Spatial Computing** — Connect vision, audio, generation, on-device intelligence, robotics, spatial interfaces, and HCI. Produce one working system, benchmark, or evidence-backed design that integrates the path.

## Prerequisites

- None assigned.

## Related concepts

- [Vision Models](https://learn.significanthobbies.com/curriculum/concepts/vision-models)
- [Pose & Motion Tracking](https://learn.significanthobbies.com/curriculum/concepts/pose-motion-tracking)

## Learning paths

- [12-Week AI Models & Training](https://learn.significanthobbies.com/curriculum/roadmaps/ai-models-training-12w)
- [12-Week Multimodal & Spatial Computing](https://learn.significanthobbies.com/curriculum/roadmaps/multimodal-spatial-12w)