Delay-free lossy audio coding using shelving pre- and post-filters

A delay-free audio coding scheme based on ADPCM with adaptive pre- and post-filtering is presented. The pre-/post- filters are realized as a cascade of shelving filters, designed to match the characteristics of human perception. The pre- and post-filters are adapted by dynamic compression of the respective sub-bands. The adaption is backward-adaptive, i.e. is fed by the reconstructed signal, which eliminates the need to transmit the filter coefficients and allows delay-free operation. This pre- and post-filtering significantly improves the audio quality compared to a plain ADPCM codec, as underlined by objective measurements. Since the base ADPCM used is also delay-free, the resulting coding system works without any algorithmic delay.