How much to Dereverberate? Low-Latency Single-Channel Speech Enhancement in Distant Microphone Scenarios

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Venkatesh, Satvik, Coleman, Philip, Benilov, Arthur, Brown, Simon, Sheta, Selim, Roskam, Frederic
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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_version_ 1866909599058100224
author Venkatesh, Satvik
Coleman, Philip
Benilov, Arthur
Brown, Simon
Sheta, Selim
Roskam, Frederic
author_facet Venkatesh, Satvik
Coleman, Philip
Benilov, Arthur
Brown, Simon
Sheta, Selim
Roskam, Frederic
contents Dereverberation is an important sub-task of Speech Enhancement (SE) to improve the signal's intelligibility and quality. However, it remains challenging because the reverberation is highly correlated with the signal. Furthermore, the single-channel SE literature has predominantly focused on rooms with short reverb times (typically under 1 second), smaller rooms (under volumes of 1000 cubic meters) and relatively short distances (up to 2 meters). In this paper, we explore real-time low-latency single-channel SE under distant microphone scenarios, such as 5 to 10 meters, and focus on conference rooms and theatres, with larger room dimensions and reverberation times. Such a setup is useful for applications such as lecture demonstrations, drama, and to enhance stage acoustics. First, we show that single-channel SE in such challenging scenarios is feasible. Second, we investigate the relationship between room volume and reverberation time, and demonstrate its importance when randomly simulating room impulse responses. Lastly, we show that for dereverberation with short decay times, preserving early reflections before decaying the transfer function of the room improves overall signal quality.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_01338
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle How much to Dereverberate? Low-Latency Single-Channel Speech Enhancement in Distant Microphone Scenarios
Venkatesh, Satvik
Coleman, Philip
Benilov, Arthur
Brown, Simon
Sheta, Selim
Roskam, Frederic
Audio and Speech Processing
Machine Learning
Sound
I.5.1; I.5.4
Dereverberation is an important sub-task of Speech Enhancement (SE) to improve the signal's intelligibility and quality. However, it remains challenging because the reverberation is highly correlated with the signal. Furthermore, the single-channel SE literature has predominantly focused on rooms with short reverb times (typically under 1 second), smaller rooms (under volumes of 1000 cubic meters) and relatively short distances (up to 2 meters). In this paper, we explore real-time low-latency single-channel SE under distant microphone scenarios, such as 5 to 10 meters, and focus on conference rooms and theatres, with larger room dimensions and reverberation times. Such a setup is useful for applications such as lecture demonstrations, drama, and to enhance stage acoustics. First, we show that single-channel SE in such challenging scenarios is feasible. Second, we investigate the relationship between room volume and reverberation time, and demonstrate its importance when randomly simulating room impulse responses. Lastly, we show that for dereverberation with short decay times, preserving early reflections before decaying the transfer function of the room improves overall signal quality.
title How much to Dereverberate? Low-Latency Single-Channel Speech Enhancement in Distant Microphone Scenarios
topic Audio and Speech Processing
Machine Learning
Sound
I.5.1; I.5.4
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.01338