A Celp-Wavelet Scalable Wideband Speech Coder

This paper presents a scalable wideband speech codec working at bitrates ranging from 8 to 32 kbit/s. The core layer is the ITU-T G. 729 at 8 kbit/s. A first enhancement layer is a bandwidth extension algorithm requiring 2 kbit/s to widen the G. 729 narrow band output speech. The difference between the wideband original and reconstructed signal is transformed in the time-frequency domain by a full wavelet decomposition. The resulting coefficients are quantized by an embedded quantizer at 22 kbit/s. Listening tests show the relevance of such a scheme when compared to a pure wavelet packet decomposition. In addition, listening tests suggest that the proposed codec is equivalent to the ITU-T G. 722 at 48 kbit/s for speech signals.