A Comparative Study of Segmental Intelligibility of Three Coding Algorithms

The quality of the speech reproduced by low-bit-rate coders is typically assessed by either global quality ratings (e.g., Diagnostic Acceptability Measure as described by Voiers, 1977), or by intelligibility scores. The Diagnostic Rhyme Test (Voiers, 1983) has become the de facto measure of intelligibility for our department in its work on 2.4 Kb/s and 4.8 Kb/s coders. There are however, other procedures that may provide more diagnostic information and may be better at detecting differences between coders when DRT scores are at or near maximum (scores above 90).