diff --git a/docs/serving/speech_api.md b/docs/serving/speech_api.md
index d4fad4206..1f2b07a27 100644
--- a/docs/serving/speech_api.md
+++ b/docs/serving/speech_api.md
@@ -904,21 +904,22 @@ Use `/v1/audio/voices` to list available voices for the loaded model.
 
 Multi-stage omni deployments route stage outputs through a single orchestrator
 loop. By default that loop polls every stage replica on a 1 ms cadence. An
-opt-in event-driven mode replaces the poll with one reader task per live stage
+the event-driven mode replaces the poll with one reader task per live stage
 replica awaiting its client directly, and switches the serving-side
-final-output drain to a condition-variable wakeup at the same time.
+final-output drain to a condition-variable wakeup at the same time. Qwen3-TTS
+uses this mode by default; other pipelines keep the legacy poll unless enabled.
 
 **Configuration (environment variables):**
 
 | Variable | Default | Description |
 | --- | --- | --- |
-| `VLLM_OMNI_EVENT_DRIVEN_ORCH` | `0` (off) | Switches the orchestration loop and the final-output drain from the legacy 1 ms poll to event-driven wakeups. Enabled by `1`, `true`, `yes`, or `on`, matched case-insensitively after surrounding whitespace is stripped; any other value leaves it off. |
+| `VLLM_OMNI_EVENT_DRIVEN_ORCH` | `0` (off), except Qwen3-TTS defaults to on | Switches the orchestration loop and the final-output drain from the legacy 1 ms poll to event-driven wakeups. An explicit value wins; otherwise the pipeline default computed at engine initialization is used. Values are matched case-insensitively after surrounding whitespace is stripped; unrecognized values select the legacy poll loop. |
 
-Set it on the process that runs the orchestrator (stage 0 of an omni
-deployment) before starting the server:
+Set it on the process that runs the orchestrator (stage 0 of an omni deployment)
+before starting the server when overriding the pipeline default:
 
 ```bash
-export VLLM_OMNI_EVENT_DRIVEN_ORCH=1
+VLLM_OMNI_EVENT_DRIVEN_ORCH=1 \
 vllm serve Qwen/Qwen3-TTS-12Hz-1.7B-Base \
     --omni \
     --port 8091
diff --git a/vllm_omni/engine/orchestrator.py b/vllm_omni/engine/orchestrator.py
index b047bfd82..831cdf947 100644
--- a/vllm_omni/engine/orchestrator.py
+++ b/vllm_omni/engine/orchestrator.py
@@ -1246,7 +1246,8 @@ class Orchestrator:
     async def _orchestration_loop_event_driven(self) -> None:
         """Event-driven variant of ``_orchestration_loop``.
 
-        Selected by ``VLLM_OMNI_EVENT_DRIVEN_ORCH=1``. One reader task per
+        Selected by the explicit ``VLLM_OMNI_EVENT_DRIVEN_ORCH`` value or the
+        pipeline default computed at engine initialization. One reader task per
         available LLM stage replica awaits ``client.get_output_async()``
         directly — the same pattern vLLM's own ``AsyncLLM`` output handler uses
         — and feeds a single dispatch queue. This coroutine consumes that queue
@@ -1417,6 +1418,9 @@ class Orchestrator:
                     continue
                 kind, stage_id, replica_id, payload = pending_get.result()
                 pending_get = None
+                # Record the queue after dequeue so the gauge reflects work
+                # still waiting for dispatch rather than producer-side depth.
+                self._orch_monitor.set_dispatch_queue_size(ready_q.qsize())
 
                 if kind == "error":
                     # replica_id < 0 means the failure was raised by a poller
diff --git a/vllm_omni/entrypoints/async_omni.py b/vllm_omni/entrypoints/async_omni.py
index f9c880c9f..e1d5d5239 100644
--- a/vllm_omni/entrypoints/async_omni.py
+++ b/vllm_omni/entrypoints/async_omni.py
@@ -60,7 +60,8 @@ if TYPE_CHECKING:
 logger = init_logger(__name__)
 _FINAL_OUTPUT_IDLE_SLEEP_S = 0.001
 # Blocking-wait interval for the event-driven final-output drain
-# (VLLM_OMNI_EVENT_DRIVEN_ORCH=1): a message wakes the drain immediately via
+# (selected by VLLM_OMNI_EVENT_DRIVEN_ORCH or the engine pipeline default): a
+# message wakes the drain immediately via
 # the janus queue's condition variable; this timeout only bounds how often the
 # orchestrator liveness check runs while the pipeline is idle.
 _FINAL_OUTPUT_BLOCKING_WAIT_S = 1.0
@@ -937,7 +938,7 @@ class AsyncOmni(EngineClient, OmniBase):
 
         engine = self.engine
 
-        # Event-driven drain (VLLM_OMNI_EVENT_DRIVEN_ORCH=1): block on the
+        # Event-driven drain (explicit env value or the engine pipeline default): block on the
         # queue's condition variable in a dedicated thread instead of the
         # get_nowait + 1 ms sleep cadence. Same flag as the orchestrator-side
         # event-driven loop (vllm_omni/engine/orchestrator.py).