A Survey of Advancing Audio Super-Resolution and Bandwidth Extension from Discriminative to Generative Models

Abstract

Audio super-resolution (SR), also referred to as bandwidth extension (BWE), aims to reconstruct high-fidelity signals from low-resolution (LR) or band-limited (BL) observations, an inherently ill-posed task due to the ambiguity of missing high-frequency (HF) content. This survey provides a comprehensive overview of the field, with a particular focus on the paradigm shift from discriminative mapping to modern generative modeling. We first review early discriminative deep neural network (DNN) models, which formulate BWE/SR as a deterministic mapping problem and are prone to regression-to-the-mean effects and spectral over-smoothing. We then systematically review generative approaches, including autoregressive (AR) models, variational autoencoders (VAEs), generative adversarial networks (GANs), diffusion and score-based models, flow-based methods, and Schr\"odinger bridges. Across these approaches, we examine key design aspects, including representation domain, architecture, conditioning mechanisms, and trade-offs among reconstruction fidelity, perceptual quality, robustness, and computational efficiency. We further conduct unified experiments on representative discriminative and generative methods to provide controlled empirical evidence for these trade-offs. Furthermore, we discuss emerging directions involving large language models (LLMs) and multimodal foundation models, and highlight open challenges in perceptual evaluation, practical deployment, and real-world generalization. By providing a structured taxonomy and unified perspective, this survey establishes a comprehensive foundation and offers a practical roadmap for advancing BWE/SR from deterministic point estimation toward distribution-aware generative modeling.