diff --git a/.github/workflows/pypi-release.yml b/.github/workflows/pypi-release.yml
index 49a5b300..2bbcf3cd 100644
--- a/.github/workflows/pypi-release.yml
+++ b/.github/workflows/pypi-release.yml
@@ -10,7 +10,7 @@ jobs:
   build-sdist:
     runs-on: ubuntu-20.04
     steps:
-      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
+      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
       - name: Verify tag matches version
         run: |
           set -ex
@@ -38,7 +38,7 @@ jobs:
       matrix:
         python-version: ["3.9", "3.10", "3.11"]
     steps:
-      - uses: actions/checkout@v2
+      - uses: actions/checkout@v3
       - uses: actions/setup-python@v2
         with:
           python-version: ${{ matrix.python-version }}
diff --git a/TTS/tts/layers/tortoise/diffusion.py b/TTS/tts/layers/tortoise/diffusion.py
index cb350af7..7bea02ca 100644
--- a/TTS/tts/layers/tortoise/diffusion.py
+++ b/TTS/tts/layers/tortoise/diffusion.py
@@ -13,12 +13,18 @@ import math
 import numpy as np
 import torch
 import torch as th
-from k_diffusion.sampling import sample_dpmpp_2m, sample_euler_ancestral
 from tqdm import tqdm
 
 from TTS.tts.layers.tortoise.dpm_solver import DPM_Solver, NoiseScheduleVP, model_wrapper
 
-K_DIFFUSION_SAMPLERS = {"k_euler_a": sample_euler_ancestral, "dpm++2m": sample_dpmpp_2m}
+try:
+    from k_diffusion.sampling import sample_dpmpp_2m, sample_euler_ancestral
+
+    K_DIFFUSION_SAMPLERS = {"k_euler_a": sample_euler_ancestral, "dpm++2m": sample_dpmpp_2m}
+except ImportError:
+    K_DIFFUSION_SAMPLERS = None
+
+
 SAMPLERS = ["dpm++2m", "p", "ddim"]
 
 
@@ -531,6 +537,8 @@ class GaussianDiffusion:
             if self.conditioning_free is not True:
                 raise RuntimeError("cond_free must be true")
             with tqdm(total=self.num_timesteps) as pbar:
+                if K_DIFFUSION_SAMPLERS is None:
+                    raise ModuleNotFoundError("Install k_diffusion for using k_diffusion samplers")
                 return self.k_diffusion_sample_loop(K_DIFFUSION_SAMPLERS[s], pbar, *args, **kwargs)
         else:
             raise RuntimeError("sampler not impl")
diff --git a/TTS/tts/layers/xtts/gpt.py b/TTS/tts/layers/xtts/gpt.py
index d914ebf9..e7b186b8 100644
--- a/TTS/tts/layers/xtts/gpt.py
+++ b/TTS/tts/layers/xtts/gpt.py
@@ -441,7 +441,9 @@ class GPT(nn.Module):
         audio_codes = F.pad(audio_codes[:, :max_mel_len], (0, 1), value=self.stop_audio_token)
 
         # Pad mel codes with stop_audio_token
-        audio_codes = self.set_mel_padding(audio_codes, code_lengths - 3) # -3 to get the real code lengths without consider start and stop tokens that was not added yet
+        audio_codes = self.set_mel_padding(
+            audio_codes, code_lengths - 3
+        )  # -3 to get the real code lengths without consider start and stop tokens that was not added yet
 
         # Build input and target tensors
         # Prepend start token to inputs and append stop token to targets
diff --git a/TTS/tts/layers/xtts/tokenizer.py b/TTS/tts/layers/xtts/tokenizer.py
index 1ef655a3..52848743 100644
--- a/TTS/tts/layers/xtts/tokenizer.py
+++ b/TTS/tts/layers/xtts/tokenizer.py
@@ -1,23 +1,22 @@
 import os
 import re
-import torch
-import pypinyin
 import textwrap
-
 from functools import cached_property
+
+import pypinyin
+import torch
 from hangul_romanize import Transliter
 from hangul_romanize.rule import academic
 from num2words import num2words
+from spacy.lang.ar import Arabic
+from spacy.lang.en import English
+from spacy.lang.es import Spanish
+from spacy.lang.ja import Japanese
+from spacy.lang.zh import Chinese
 from tokenizers import Tokenizer
 
 from TTS.tts.layers.xtts.zh_num2words import TextNorm as zh_num2words
 
-from spacy.lang.en import English
-from spacy.lang.zh import Chinese
-from spacy.lang.ja import Japanese
-from spacy.lang.ar import Arabic
-from spacy.lang.es import Spanish
-
 
 def get_spacy_lang(lang):
     if lang == "zh":
@@ -32,6 +31,7 @@ def get_spacy_lang(lang):
         # For most languages, Enlish does the job
         return English()
 
+
 def split_sentence(text, lang, text_split_length=250):
     """Preprocess the input text"""
     text_splits = []
@@ -67,6 +67,7 @@ def split_sentence(text, lang, text_split_length=250):
 
     return text_splits
 
+
 _whitespace_re = re.compile(r"\s+")
 
 # List of (regular expression, replacement) pairs for abbreviations:
@@ -619,7 +620,7 @@ class VoiceBpeTokenizer:
         return cutlet.Cutlet()
 
     def check_input_length(self, txt, lang):
-        lang = lang.split("-")[0] # remove the region
+        lang = lang.split("-")[0]  # remove the region
         limit = self.char_limits.get(lang, 250)
         if len(txt) > limit:
             print(
@@ -640,7 +641,7 @@ class VoiceBpeTokenizer:
         return txt
 
     def encode(self, txt, lang):
-        lang = lang.split("-")[0] # remove the region
+        lang = lang.split("-")[0]  # remove the region
         self.check_input_length(txt, lang)
         txt = self.preprocess_text(txt, lang)
         lang = "zh-cn" if lang == "zh" else lang
diff --git a/TTS/tts/models/xtts.py b/TTS/tts/models/xtts.py
index 3583591f..208ec4d5 100644
--- a/TTS/tts/models/xtts.py
+++ b/TTS/tts/models/xtts.py
@@ -513,13 +513,13 @@ class Xtts(BaseTTS):
         enable_text_splitting=False,
         **hf_generate_kwargs,
     ):
-        language = language.split("-")[0] # remove the country code
+        language = language.split("-")[0]  # remove the country code
         length_scale = 1.0 / max(speed, 0.05)
         if enable_text_splitting:
             text = split_sentence(text, language, self.tokenizer.char_limits[language])
         else:
             text = [text]
-        
+
         wavs = []
         gpt_latents_list = []
         for sent in text:
@@ -563,9 +563,7 @@ class Xtts(BaseTTS):
 
                 if length_scale != 1.0:
                     gpt_latents = F.interpolate(
-                        gpt_latents.transpose(1, 2),
-                        scale_factor=length_scale,
-                        mode="linear"
+                        gpt_latents.transpose(1, 2), scale_factor=length_scale, mode="linear"
                     ).transpose(1, 2)
 
                 gpt_latents_list.append(gpt_latents.cpu())
@@ -623,7 +621,7 @@ class Xtts(BaseTTS):
         enable_text_splitting=False,
         **hf_generate_kwargs,
     ):
-        language = language.split("-")[0] # remove the country code
+        language = language.split("-")[0]  # remove the country code
         length_scale = 1.0 / max(speed, 0.05)
         if enable_text_splitting:
             text = split_sentence(text, language, self.tokenizer.char_limits[language])
@@ -675,9 +673,7 @@ class Xtts(BaseTTS):
                     gpt_latents = torch.cat(all_latents, dim=0)[None, :]
                     if length_scale != 1.0:
                         gpt_latents = F.interpolate(
-                            gpt_latents.transpose(1, 2),
-                            scale_factor=length_scale,
-                            mode="linear"
+                            gpt_latents.transpose(1, 2), scale_factor=length_scale, mode="linear"
                         ).transpose(1, 2)
                     wav_gen = self.hifigan_decoder(gpt_latents, g=speaker_embedding.to(self.device))
                     wav_chunk, wav_gen_prev, wav_overlap = self.handle_chunks(
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 836de40a..ce0e5d92 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -1,31 +1,31 @@
 # core deps
 numpy==1.22.0;python_version<="3.10"
-numpy==1.24.3;python_version>"3.10"
-cython==0.29.30
+numpy>=1.24.3;python_version>"3.10"
+cython>=0.29.30
 scipy>=1.11.2
 torch>=2.1
 torchaudio
-soundfile==0.12.*
-librosa==0.10.*
-scikit-learn==1.3.0
+soundfile>=0.12.0
+librosa>=0.10.0
+scikit-learn>=1.3.0
 numba==0.55.1;python_version<"3.9"
-numba==0.57.0;python_version>="3.9"
-inflect==5.6.*
-tqdm==4.64.*
-anyascii==0.3.*
-pyyaml==6.*
-fsspec==2023.6.0 # <= 2023.9.1 makes aux tests fail
-aiohttp==3.8.*
-packaging==23.1
+numba>=0.57.0;python_version>="3.9"
+inflect>=5.6.0
+tqdm>=4.64.1
+anyascii>=0.3.0
+pyyaml>=6.0
+fsspec>=2023.6.0 # <= 2023.9.1 makes aux tests fail
+aiohttp>=3.8.1
+packaging>=23.1
 # deps for examples
-flask==2.*
+flask>=2.0.1
 # deps for inference
-pysbd==0.3.4
+pysbd>=0.3.4
 # deps for notebooks
-umap-learn==0.5.*
+umap-learn>=0.5.1
 pandas>=1.4,<2.0
 # deps for training
-matplotlib==3.7.*
+matplotlib>=3.7.0
 # coqui stack
 trainer
 # config management
@@ -46,12 +46,11 @@ bangla
 bnnumerizer
 bnunicodenormalizer
 #deps for tortoise
-k_diffusion
-einops==0.6.*
-transformers==4.33.*
+einops>=0.6.0
+transformers>=4.33.0
 #deps for bark
-encodec==0.1.*
+encodec>=0.1.1
 # deps for XTTS
-unidecode==1.3.*
+unidecode>=1.3.2
 num2words
 spacy[ja]>=3
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/tests/zoo_tests/test_models.py b/tests/zoo_tests/test_models.py
index a5aad5c1..8fa56e28 100644
--- a/tests/zoo_tests/test_models.py
+++ b/tests/zoo_tests/test_models.py
@@ -186,7 +186,7 @@ def test_xtts_v2_streaming():
         "en",
         gpt_cond_latent,
         speaker_embedding,
-        speed=1.5
+        speed=1.5,
     )
     wav_chuncks = []
     for i, chunk in enumerate(chunks):
@@ -198,7 +198,7 @@ def test_xtts_v2_streaming():
         "en",
         gpt_cond_latent,
         speaker_embedding,
-        speed=0.66
+        speed=0.66,
     )
     wav_chuncks = []
     for i, chunk in enumerate(chunks):