diff --git a/src/fairseq2/assets/cards/datasets/librispeech.yaml b/src/fairseq2/assets/cards/datasets/librispeech.yaml
index 509f128ad..88218a12d 100644
--- a/src/fairseq2/assets/cards/datasets/librispeech.yaml
+++ b/src/fairseq2/assets/cards/datasets/librispeech.yaml
@@ -13,3 +13,8 @@ tokenizer_family: librispeech_asr
 
 name: librispeech_asr_100h
 base: librispeech_asr
+
+---
+
+name: librispeech_960h
+dataset_family: generic_speech
diff --git a/src/fairseq2/datasets/__init__.py b/src/fairseq2/datasets/__init__.py
index 925840050..5a7b6fccb 100644
--- a/src/fairseq2/datasets/__init__.py
+++ b/src/fairseq2/datasets/__init__.py
@@ -22,4 +22,5 @@
 import fairseq2.datasets.asr
 import fairseq2.datasets.instruction
 import fairseq2.datasets.parallel_text
+import fairseq2.datasets.speech
 import fairseq2.datasets.text
diff --git a/src/fairseq2/datasets/speech.py b/src/fairseq2/datasets/speech.py
new file mode 100644
index 000000000..4fb06fcd4
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/fairseq2/datasets/speech.py
@@ -0,0 +1,99 @@
+# Copyright (c) Meta Platforms, Inc. and affiliates.
+# All rights reserved.
+#
+# This source code is licensed under the BSD-style license found in the
+# LICENSE file in the root directory of this source tree.
+
+from __future__ import annotations
+
+from abc import ABC, abstractmethod
+from typing import Any
+
+import torch
+
+from fairseq2.datasets.batching import LengthBatching, StaticBatching
+from fairseq2.datasets.data_reader import DataReader
+from fairseq2.datasets.loader import DelegatingDatasetLoader
+from fairseq2.gang import Gang
+from fairseq2.models.sequence import SequenceBatch
+from fairseq2.typing import DataType
+
+
+class SpeechDataset(ABC):
+    """Represents a speech dataset."""
+
+    @abstractmethod
+    def create_reader(
+        self,
+        split: str,
+        gang: Gang,
+        max_audio_len: int,
+        batching: StaticBatching | LengthBatching,
+        *,
+        dtype: DataType = torch.float32,
+        min_audio_len: int = 1,
+        normalize_audio: bool = False,
+        example_shuffle_window: int = 1,
+        batch_shuffle_window: int = 1,
+        drop_remainder: bool = False,
+        sync_batches: bool = True,
+        max_num_batches: int | None = None,
+        num_accumulate: int = 1,
+        num_prefetch: int = 1,
+        seed: int = 2,
+        **extras: Any,
+    ) -> DataReader[SequenceBatch]:
+        """Create a dataset reader.
+
+        :param split:
+            The split to read.
+        :param gang:
+            The gang over which to shard the dataset.
+        :param max_audio_len:
+            The maximum audio length of each example. Examples longer than
+            this value will be dropped.
+        :param batching:
+            The batching strategy for returned examples.
+        :param dtype:
+            The data type of the decoded audio sequences.
+        :param min_audio_len:
+            The minimum audio length of each example. Examples shorter than
+            this value will be dropped.
+        :param normalize_audio:
+            If ``True``, normalizes audio to have zero mean and unit variance.
+        :param example_shuffle_window:
+            The size of the sliding window for shuffling examples. If ``1``, no
+            shuffling is performed; if ``0``, true shuffling is performed by
+            loading the entire dataset.
+        :param batch_shuffle_window:
+            The size of the sliding window for shuffling batches. If ``1``, no
+            shuffling is performed; if ``0``, true shuffling is performed by
+            loading the entire dataset.
+        :param drop_remainder:
+            If ``True``, drops the last set of batches if they have in total
+            fewer examples than requested.
+        :param sync_batches:
+            If ``True``, ensures that each process in ``gang`` reads the same
+            number of batches. Typically used when the amount of data to be read
+            can vary per process (e.g. due to unbalanced sharding or non-static
+            batching) and it is critical for each process to iterate over the
+            same number of batches (e.g. during training).
+        :param max_num_batches:
+            The maximum number of batches to return.
+        :param num_accumulate:
+            The number of batches to accumulate in each iteration. Typically
+            used with gradient accumulation during training.
+        :param num_prefetch:
+            The number of batches to prefetch in background.
+        :param seed:
+            The seed to initialize the random number generators used internally.
+        :param extras:
+            The extra parameters specific to the dataset implementation.
+        """
+
+    @abstractmethod
+    def splits(self) -> set[str]:
+        """Return the set of splits."""
+
+
+load_speech_dataset = DelegatingDatasetLoader[SpeechDataset]()