Abstract
This work presents a theoretical foundation and experimental results to support the quasi-optimality of the square-root Wiener (SRW) filter for noise reduction with speech envelope preservation. The optimal time–frequency mask (TFM) for noise reduction with real-world speech envelope preservation is developed. It is demonstrated that the SRW approximates the optimal TFM for perfect envelope estimates. Attenuation functions, envelope preservation errors, and intelligibility results obtained from two objective metrics were compared for different types of noise, contamination levels, and envelope approximations. No statistically significant differences were found between the SRW and the optimal TFM results. Therefore, the SRW filter may be considered a quasi-optimal TFM for noise reduction with speech envelope preservation. This finding justifies and corroborates empirical observations recently reported in the literature about the superior intelligibility results of the SRW compared to other TFMs, such as the Wiener filter and the binary mask. These contributions are of special interest to designers of high-performance noise reduction systems in cochlear implant applications.
Published Version
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