Diagnostic-Driven Layer-Wise Compensation for Post-Training Quantization of Encoder-Decoder ASR Models

Layer-wise post-training quantization reconstructs each layer from inputs already altered by the quantized prefix. QEP compensates for this drift with one model-wide coefficient, conflating the model-level operating point with residual variation across layers. We present FADE, which constructs layer-specific coefficients from normalized round-to-nearest distortion and a heuristic calibrated-solver response. It requires no training or per-model coefficient search and adds no inference-time operation. We evaluate seven Whisper, Moonshine, and Qwen3-ASR models at 3 and 4 bits on four English ASR benchmarks. Across 38 settings, FADE lowers mean word error rate relative to fixed QEP-0.5 in 31, although a development-tuned global coefficient recovers much of this gap. The largest absolute reductions occur in 3-bit settings whose final error remains too high for practical use; these results measure collapse mitigation rather than deployable accuracy. In two lower-WER 3-bit cases, FADE reduces the tuned-global result from 3.67 to 3.10 and from 13.03 to 11.63. Most 4-bit differences from the tuned control are within a descriptive tolerance, and one reverses. Paired reruns and within-seed permutations on an outcome-informed subset support assignment sensitivity in selected cases, but do not estimate a matrix-wide success rate. FADE is therefore a layer-wise alternative when per-model coefficient search is unavailable, not a universal replacement for tuned global compensation.