A novel audio coding scheme using warped linear prediction model and the discrete wavelet transform

In this paper, we present a novel audio coder using the discrete wavelet transform (DWT) and warped linear prediction (WLP). In contrast to conventional LP, WLP allows for the control of frequency resolution to closely match the response of the human auditory system. The structure of the system is similar to the transform coded excitation techniques used in wideband speech coding, where LP has been replaced with WLP, and the residual is analyzed by a wavelet filterbank designed to approximate the critical bands. The inherent shaping of the WLP synthesis filter, and a controlled bit allocation to the wavelet coefficients helps minimise the perceptually significant noise due to the quantization error in the residual. For monophonic signals sampled at 44.1 kHz, the coder achieves near transparent to transparent quality for a variety of speech and music signals at an average bitrate of about 64 kb/s. Tests also show that the coder (in its initial implementation) delivers superior quality to the MPEG layer III and comparable quality to the MPEG2-AAC codec when operating at the same bitrate