An audio encoder has a first information sink oriented encoding branch, a second information source or SNR oriented encoding branch, and a switch for switching between the first encoding branch and the second encoding branch, wherein the second encoding branch has a converter into a specific domain different from the spectral domain, and wherein the second encoding branch furthermore has a specific domain coding branch, and a specific spectral domain coding branch, and an additional switch for switching between the specific domain coding branch and the specific spectral domain coding branch. An audio decoder has a first domain decoder, a second domain decoder for decoding a signal, and a third domain decoder and two cascaded switches for switching between the decoders.