Speech coding is fundamentally a quality-versus-bitrate optimization tradeoff.

Evidence

The idea in speech coding is to transmit or store and replay speech signals using minimal information capacity (number of bits) and with the best possible sound quality. In reality, this implies optimization, which is a trade-off between quality and cost. … In wireless speech communication in particular, the channel capacity is limited, and cost vs. quality optimization is important. — Ville Pulkki, Matti Karjalainen, Communication Acoustics- An…, 2214

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines the core framing of speech coding as bitrate-quality optimization, useful as a conceptual anchor for the whole chapter.