A method for compressing audio data comprising: obtaining a sequence of digitized samples of an audio signal; performing a transform using the sequence of digitized samples, to generate a plurality of spectral lines; obtaining a group of spectral lines from the plurality of spectral lines; quantizing the group of spectral lines to generate a group of quantized values; wherein quantizing the group of spectral lines to generate the group of quantized values comprises: performing a specialized rounding operation on a spectral line selected from the group of spectral lines; and using the specialized rounding operation to force a group parity value, computed for the group of quantized values, to a predetermined parity value; and outputting one or more data frames based on the group of quantized values wherein: the specialized rounding operation is performed on a pre-rounding value associated with the selected spectral line, the pre-rounding value comprises a floating-point value or a fixed-point value, and the group of quantized values comprise a group of integers or fixed-point values and wherein the specialized rounding operation flips a rounding direction used for rounding the pre-rounding value associated with the selected spectral line, to force the group parity value computed for the group of quantized values to the predetermined parity value. obtaining a sequence of digitized samples of an audio signal; performing a transform using the sequence of digitized samples, to generate a plurality of spectral lines; obtaining a group of spectral lines from the plurality of spectral lines; quantizing the group of spectral lines to generate a group of quantized values; wherein quantizing the group of spectral lines to generate the group of quantized values comprises: performing a specialized rounding operation on a spectral line selected from the group of spectral lines; and using the specialized rounding operation to force a group parity value, computed for the group of quantized values, to a predetermined parity value; and performing a specialized rounding operation on a spectral line selected from the group of spectral lines; and using the specialized rounding operation to force a group parity value, computed for the group of quantized values, to a predetermined parity value; and outputting one or more data frames based on the group of quantized values wherein: the specialized rounding operation is performed on a pre-rounding value associated with the selected spectral line, the pre-rounding value comprises a floating-point value or a fixed-point value, and the group of quantized values comprise a group of integers or fixed-point values and wherein the specialized rounding operation flips a rounding direction used for rounding the pre-rounding value associated with the selected spectral line, to force the group parity value computed for the group of quantized values to the predetermined parity value. the specialized rounding operation is performed on a pre-rounding value associated with the selected spectral line, the pre-rounding value comprises a floating-point value or a fixed-point value, and the group of quantized values comprise a group of integers or fixed-point values and wherein the specialized rounding operation flips a rounding direction used for rounding the pre-rounding value associated with the selected spectral line, to force the group parity value computed for the group of quantized values to the predetermined parity value.