Time-Alignment of QMF Based Processing Data

An audio decoder configured to determine a reconstructed frame of an audio signal from an access unit of a received data stream;

• wherein the access unit comprises waveform data and metadata;
• wherein the waveform data and the metadata are associated with the same reconstructed frame of the audio signal;
• wherein the audio decoder comprises
• a waveform processing path configured to generate a plurality of waveform subband signals from the waveform data;
• a metadata processing path configured to generate decoded metadata from the metadata;
• and
• a metadata application and synthesis unit configured to generate the reconstructed frame of the audio signal from the plurality of waveform subband signals and from the decoded metadata;
• wherein the waveform processing path comprises a waveform delay unit, which is configured to apply a waveform delay on a waveform signal which is represented in the time domain, and/or the metadata processing path comprises a metadata delay unit, the waveform delay unit and/or the metadata delay unit being configured to time-align the plurality of waveform subband signals and the decoded metadata, and wherein the analysis unit introduces a fixed delay which is independent of the frame length N of the reconstructed frame of the audio signal.