1. A speech recognition system comprising: a split vector quantizer to receive first parameters of an input signal, to partition the first parameters into S.sub.1 partitions, and to generate a first quantization observation sequence; a first speech classifier to receive the first quantization observation sequence from the split vector quantizer and generate first respective speech classification output data; a split matrix quantizer to receive second parameters of the input signal, to partition the second parameters into S.sub.2 partitions, and generate a second quantization observation sequence; a second speech classifier to receive the second quantization observation sequence from the split matrix quantizer and generate second respective speech classification output data; and a hybrid decision generator to combine corresponding first and second respective speech classification data to generate third respective speech classification data and to recognize the input signal from the third respective speech classification data.