Abstract: A data compression system 200, method, and apparatus 214 employs an encoder 210 optimized to decorrelate and make independent from the original signal 202, the quantization noise produced during signal compression. The proposed system 200, method, and apparatus 214 supports high degrees of signal compression, which in turn leads to lower computational complexity and improved performance. Because the quantization noise produced during signal compression is made independent from and non-orthogonal (i.e., uncorrelated) to the original signal 202, enhanced filtering is achievable, which in turn leads to improvements in the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of the decoder 220.