Deep Neural Network Based Low-Latency Speech Separation with Asymmetric Analysis-Synthesis Window Pair

Time-frequency masking or spectrum prediction computed via short symmetric windows are commonly used in low-latency deep neural network (DNN) based source separation. In this paper, we propose the use of an asymmetric analysis-synthesis window pair which allows for training with targets with better frequency resolution, while retaining the low-latency during inference suitable for real-time speech enhancement or assisted hearing applications. In order to assess our approach across various model types and datasets, we evaluate it with a speaker-independent deep clustering (DC) model and a speaker-dependent mask inference (MI) model. We report an improvement in separation performance of up to 1.5 dB in terms of source-to-distortion ratio (SDR) while maintaining an algorithmic latency of 8 ms.