Granite Speech 5.0 2B vs Underdog Bark 3.0

Granite Speech 5.0 2B 92

Model card 17, Intended use, limitations, the architecture, the size, the 16K positions and two-minute segments, and the languages are on the card. Training data 20, the data is listed with sources and sizes: a 39-row table giving each corpus, its task, its hours and a link to where it comes from, with the synthetic sets described. Last change 20, the last commit, on 6 November 2026, updated the card, 4 days before this check. Responsiveness 20, Both discussions that aren't pull requests (21 and 28 October 2026) have a reply from an ibm-granite member. Version policy 5, granite-speech-4.1-2b stays in its own repository and 5.0 came out in a new one, which names its predecessor and gives a release date. File health 10, Config, template and card agree on the architecture and the 16K positions. 17 + 20 + 20 + 20 + 5 + 10 = 92.

Underdog Bark 3.0 49

The card misses the audio length it takes and a knowledge cut-off (14). Nothing describes the data Conway post-trained on (0). The files are six days old (20). Nobody has opened a discussion yet, which reads as none answered (0). Bark 1.0 and 2.0 stay in their own repositories without dated notes, and some 1.x repositories Bark 2.0's card links now answer 401 (5). The files agree with the card and no broken-file report waits (10).

Granite Speech 5.0 2B 95

Memory 30, the smallest build listed that keeps 4 bits is IBM's Q4_K_M GGUF, 1.14 GB with the 1.16 GB audio projector, and 2.30 GB × 1.2 = 2.8 GB, within 16 GB. IBM recommends Q8_0, 3.12 GB with the projector. Runtimes 20, Released Transformers 5.22.2 and vLLM 0.33.0 have the granite_speech model, llama.cpp b12242 has its converter and audio front end, and Ollama carries it as ibm/granite5-speech, which the card says was tested with v0.40.15. Builds 15, IBM publishes GGUF builds at fourteen quantised precisions, from Q2_K to Q8_0, with the audio projector. Terms 15, Apache 2.0 in the metadata and on the card, with nothing added. Download 10, the Hub API reports gated false for both repositories on 10 November 2026, so the files download with no account and nothing to accept. Hosted 5, IBM runs a Hugging Face Inference Endpoint that serves this model through an OpenAI-compatible API, with the address and code on the card. 30 + 20 + 15 + 15 + 10 + 5 = 95.

Underdog Bark 3.0 65

Memory earns the full 30, since model.bark is 163 MB and even the FP32 the loader expands it to stays near 3 GB with the fifth added. Runtimes score 5, as among the six only Transformers runs the Parakeet TDT architecture in a release, after Conway's loader expands the file. One quantised precision from Conway, in model.bark and the Core ML packages, gives builds 10. CC BY 4.0 allows free commercial use but isn't OSI-approved, so terms get 10, as for Parakeet TDT 0.6B v3. Ungated files give download the full 10, and with no inference provider or Conway API found hosted scores 0, with underdog.ai unchecked.

Granite Speech 5.0 2B 70

File safety 25, safetensors and GGUF only, no .bin, .pt or .pth files and no Python in either repository. Provenance 15, the files sit in the ibm-granite organisation, which IBM's Granite docs link to (10). Safety evaluation 0, no safety results on the card. Agent guidance 10, the card says what the model does with a prompt it doesn't know: it ignores an unfamiliar or malformed prompt and transcribes, which it says limits how audio can steer the system. Licence risk 15, Apache 2.0 with no use policy, no threshold and no right to change the terms. Security programme 5, www.ibm.com/.well-known/security.txt names IBM PSIRT, read for the Granite 4.2 3B listing on 4 November 2026 (5). 25 + 15 + 0 + 10 + 15 + 5 = 70.

Underdog Bark 3.0 40

File safety gets 15, no pickle anywhere in a format of Conway's own, less 10 because every documented route runs the repository's Python. Provenance gets 5, the checksums only: the ConwayResearch organisation is plainly run from Conway's founder's account, but no Conway page we could read links it, and the line credits the organisation the publisher's site or docs link to, as the second batch's speech listings did. That's low partly because underdog.ai, where such a link would likely sit, refuses our reader. CC BY 4.0 carries none of the licence deductions, so licence risk keeps 15. Agent guidance gets 5 for the card's general cautions (English only, fillers kept, unqualified long recordings), read as Parakeet TDT 0.6B v3's were. Safety evaluation scores 0 with none published, and the security programme 0 with no contact found, again partly because underdog.ai couldn't be read.

Granite Speech 5.0 2B 55

Chat template 20, chat_template.jinja in the repository (193 characters). Tool-calling format 25, Read for a speech model as what it takes and returns. Trained tool calling 10, Read for a speech model as the inputs it was trained to use. Structured output 0, Read for a speech model as typed outputs. Reasoning control 0, A speech model with no reasoning. Context 0, the language model is extended to 16K positions, per the card and config.json (16,384), below the 32K band, and the card says to send audio in segments of about two minutes. 20 + 25 + 10 + 0 + 0 + 0 = 55.

Underdog Bark 3.0 35

Read for a speech model, the tool-calling, trained tool calling and structured-output lines stand for what it takes and returns. Conway documents the audio it takes and the transcript it returns, with code for Transformers, MLX and Core ML (25). It takes one clip with no hints or prompt (10). It returns plain text only, with no timestamps or other typed output (0). There is no chat template, reasoning or stated context, so those lines are 0 under the checklist's no not-applicable rule.