System for improving speech quality and intelligibility

Abstract From the Canadian patent

A system and method are provided for improving the quality and intelligibility of speech signals. The system and method apply frequency compression to the higher frequency components of speech signals while leaving lower frequency components substantially unchanged. This preserves higher frequency information related to consonants which is typically lost to filtering and bandpass constraints. This information is preserved without significantly altering the fundamental pitch of the speech signal so that when the speech signal is reproduced its overall tone qualities are preserved. The system and method further apply frequency expansion to speech signals. Like the compression, only …