Perceptual relevance of the temporal envelope to the speech signal in the 4-7 kHz band.

The perceptual relevance of adopting the temporal envelope to model the frequency band of 4-7 kHz (highband) in wideband speech signal is described in this letter. Based on theoretical work in psychoacoustics, we find out that the temporal envelope can indeed be a perceptual cue for the high-band signal, i.e., a noiseless sound can be obtained if the temporal envelope is roughly preserved. Subjective listening tests verify that transparent quality can be obtained if the model is used for the 4.5-7 kHz band. The proposed model has the benefits of offering flexible scalability and reducing the cost for quantization in coding applications.