TQCodec: Towards neural audio codec for high-fidelity music streaming
Abstract
We propose TQCodec, a neural audio codec designed for high-bitrate, high-fidelity music streaming. Unlike existing neural codecs that primarily target ultra-low bitrates (<= 16kbps), TQCodec operates at 44.1 kHz and supports bitrates from 32 kbps to 128 kbps, aligning with the standard quality of modern music streaming platforms. The model adopts an encoder-decoder architecture based on SEANet for efficient on-device computation and introduces several enhancements: an imbalanced network design for improved quality with low overhead, SimVQ for mid-frequency detail preservation, and a phase-aware waveform loss. Additionally, we introduce a perception-driven band-wise bit allocation strategy to prioritize perceptually critical lower frequencies. Evaluations on diverse music datasets demonstrate that TQCodec achieves superior audio quality at target bitrates, making it well-suited for high-quality audio applications.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2603.01592,
title = {TQCodec: Towards neural audio codec for high-fidelity music streaming},
author = {Lixing He and Zhouxuan Chen and Mingshuai Liu and Xinran Sun and Wucheng Wang and Minfu Li and Lingcheng Kong and Weifeng Zhao and Wenjiang Zhou},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.01592},
year = {2026}
}