Abstract: A system and method for enhancing acoustic signal buried in noise. The invention matches the acoustic input to a signal model and produces a corresponding output that has very low noise. Input data are digitized, transformed to a time-frequency representation, background noise is estimated, and transient sounds are isolated. A signal detector is applied to the transient. Long transients without signal content, and the background between the transients, are included in the noise estimate. If at least some part of the transient contains signal of interest, the spectrum of the signal is compared to the signal model after rescaling, and the signal's parameters are fitted to the data. If an existing template is found that resembles the input pattern, the template is averaged with the pattern in such a way that the resulting template is the average of all the spectra that matched that template in the past.