Reproduction accuracy of a digital signal, representing for example stereo
audio signals, is improved by transmitting sample data which have been
encoded to form transmission signals. The transmission signals are
arranged in consecutive frames, each frame including a plurality of
information packets, and each information packet including N bits. The
number of information packets in a frame is determined by the ratio of
the product of the transmission bit-rate and the number of samples
represented in the frame, to the product of the number of bits in a
packet and the sampling frequency. The transmission signals are recorded
in a record carrier, or are transmitted in real time. In a digital stereo
audio signal embodiment, the samples may be sub-band encoded or transform
encoded. The transmission signal may include an indicator signal
indicating a combination of certain samples, or scale factor signals for
specific components of the sampled signal.