A method of expanding an audio signal comprising: receiving an audio signal; and expanding the received audio signal to an expanded dynamic range through an expansion process comprising: dividing the received audio signal into a plurality of time-segments using a defined window shape; calculating a wideband gain for each time-segment in the frequency domain using a p-norm of spectral magnitudes of each time-segment of a frequency domain representation of the received audio signal, wherein p < 2; and for each time-segment, applying the calculated wideband gain to the time-segment to obtain an expanded audio signal, wherein the application of the wideband gains amplifies time-segments of relatively high intensity and attenuates time-segments of relatively low intensity, wherein the time-segments are overlapping, wherein a first filterbank is used to analyze the received audio signal to obtain the frequency domain representation, and the defined window shape corresponds to a prototype filter for the first filterbank, wherein the wideband gain for each time-segment is calculated using subband samples in a first subset of subbands of the first filterbank and applied to a second different subset of subbands of the first filterbank in the respective time-segment, wherein the second subset of subbands includes the first subset of subbands. receiving an audio signal; and expanding the received audio signal to an expanded dynamic range through an expansion process comprising: dividing the received audio signal into a plurality of time-segments using a defined window shape; calculating a wideband gain for each time-segment in the frequency domain using a p-norm of spectral magnitudes of each time-segment of a frequency domain representation of the received audio signal, wherein p < 2; and for each time-segment, applying the calculated wideband gain to the time-segment to obtain an expanded audio signal, wherein the application of the wideband gains amplifies time-segments of relatively high intensity and attenuates time-segments of relatively low intensity, wherein the time-segments are overlapping, wherein a first filterbank is used to analyze the received audio signal to obtain the frequency domain representation, and the defined window shape corresponds to a prototype filter for the first filterbank, wherein the wideband gain for each time-segment is calculated using subband samples in a first subset of subbands of the first filterbank and applied to a second different subset of subbands of the first filterbank in the respective time-segment, wherein the second subset of subbands includes the first subset of subbands. dividing the received audio signal into a plurality of time-segments using a defined window shape; calculating a wideband gain for each time-segment in the frequency domain using a p-norm of spectral magnitudes of each time-segment of a frequency domain representation of the received audio signal, wherein p < 2; and for each time-segment, applying the calculated wideband gain to the time-segment to obtain an expanded audio signal, wherein the application of the wideband gains amplifies time-segments of relatively high intensity and attenuates time-segments of relatively low intensity, wherein the time-segments are overlapping, wherein a first filterbank is used to analyze the received audio signal to obtain the frequency domain representation, and the defined window shape corresponds to a prototype filter for the first filterbank, wherein the wideband gain for each time-segment is calculated using subband samples in a first subset of subbands of the first filterbank and applied to a second different subset of subbands of the first filterbank in the respective time-segment, wherein the second subset of subbands includes the first subset of subbands.