MiniMax: Speech 2.8 Turbo

MiniMax: Speech 2.8 Turbo is a text to speech model from MiniMax. It sits in the speech category and is built for applications that need to turn written text into spoken audio. MiniMax is the provider behind the model, and the model id on api14 is minimax/speech-2.8-turbo.

The model takes text as its only input and produces speech as its only output. It accepts arbitrary MiniMax voice IDs, and a set of English voices is available, covering a wide range of delivery styles. These include narrator and storyteller voices such as English_expressive_narrator and English_CaptivatingStoryteller, character style voices such as English_AnimeCharacter and English_Comedian, and many tone specific options like English_CalmWoman, English_Whispering_girl, English_MatureBoss, English_SadTeen and English_AssertiveQueen. There is no context length listed for this model, and no supported request parameters are listed either, so treat it as a focused single purpose endpoint rather than a general text model.

Because the output is audio generated from text, the practical uses follow directly from that. You can narrate articles, stories or documentation, give a product or assistant a consistent spoken persona by picking a matching voice, produce character dialogue for games or animation with voices like English_AnimeCharacter or English_PassionateWarrior, and generate calm, reassuring or authoritative reads for training, onboarding or support content. The breadth of the voice list means the same text can be rendered in very different registers without changing anything but the voice ID.

You call the model through api14's OpenAI-compatible API using the model id minimax/speech-2.8-turbo. Because the interface is OpenAI-compatible, you can point existing OpenAI client libraries at the api14 base URL and send a request in the usual shape, with the model id in the model field and your text as the input. The response contains the generated speech. No supported parameters are listed for this model, so keep requests simple and rely on the model id and the voice selection rather than assuming extra tuning options exist.

One thing to keep in mind is scope. This model only accepts text and only returns speech, so it is not the right choice for transcription, translation, reasoning or any task that needs a text answer back. If you need a model that reads audio or returns written output, another model on api14 will fit better. Within its lane, Speech 2.8 Turbo is the option to reach for when the deliverable is spoken audio.