A comparison of the performance of four low-bit-rate speech waveform coders

• Published in: Bell System Technical Journal Vol. 58; no. 3; pp. 699 - 712
• Main Authors: Tribolet, J. M., Noll, P., McDermott, B. J., Crochiere, R. E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK American Telephone and Telegraph Company 01.03.1979; Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• ISSN: 0005-8580; 2376-7154; 1538-7305
• DOI: 10.1002/j.1538-7305.1979.tb02240.x

Subjective ratings were obtained for four different speech waveform coders of varying complexity at each of three bit rates (24, 16, and 9.6 kb/s). atc (adaptive transform coding) is rated the highest and adpcm-f (adaptive differential pcm with a fixed predictor) the lowest, regardless of bit rate. Although there is large variability in the ratings due to different talkers and listeners, sbc (sub-band coding) is rated higher than adpcm-f and about equal to adpcm-v (adaptive differential pcm with a variable predictor) for most talkers and listeners. A weighted combination of two objective measures, one accounting for noise and the other for bandwidth effects, appears promising as a predictor of the subjective quality ratings.