Disclosed herein are systems, methods, and computer-readable storage media for detecting voice activity in a media signal in an augmented, multi-tier classifier architecture. A system configured to practice the method can receive, from a first classifier, a first voice activity indicator detected in a first modality for a human subject. Then, the system can receive, from a second classifier, a second voice activity indicator detected in a second modality for the human subject, wherein the first voice activity indicator and the second voice activity indicators are based on the human subject at a same time, and wherein the first modality and the second modality are different. The system can concatenate, via a third classifier, the first voice activity indicator and the second voice activity indicator with original features of the human subject, to yield a classifier output, and determine voice activity based on the classifier output.