Methods and devices for joint multichannel coding

An apparatus for decoding a bit stream comprising M input audio channels, wherein M is at least 3, the apparatus comprising:

• an extractor for extracting side information from the bit stream;
• a stereo decoder configured to stereo decode a first pair of audio channels based on the side information, from the M input audio channels;
• so as to obtain two stereo decoded audio channels, wherein the two stereo decoded audio channels combined with M−2 of the input audio channels not included in the first pair of audio channels form a first set of M audio channels, the stereo decoder further configured to stereo decode a second pair of audio channels so as to obtain two additional stereo decoded audio channels, wherein the two additional stereo decoded audio channels, together with the M−2 of the audio channels, form a second set of M audio channels.