An audio processing system configured to accept an audio bitstream associated with a stream of video frames (V11, V12,...), the audio bitstream being segmented into audio frames (A11, A12,...), wherein each video frame is temporally related to a frame in the audio bitstream carrying audio data of equal duration as one or more video frames, the audio processing system comprising: a front-end component, which includes: a dequantization stage adapted to repeatedly receive quantized spectral coefficients corresponding to one audio frame in the audio bitstream, and to output a first frequency-domain representation of an intermediate signal; and an inverse transform stage for receiving the first frequency-domain representation of the intermediate signal and synthesizing, based thereon, a time-domain representation of the intermediate signal; a processing stage, which includes: an analysis filterbank for receiving the time-domain representation of the intermediate signal and outputting a second frequency-domain representation of the intermediate signal; at least one processing component (124, 126) for receiving said second frequency-domain representation of the intermediate signal and outputting a frequency-domain representation of a processed audio signal; and a synthesis filterbank for receiving the frequency-domain representation of the processed audio signal and outputting a time-domain representation of the processed audio signal; and a sample rate converter for receiving said time-domain representation of the processed audio signal and outputting a reconstructed audio signal sampled at a target sampling frequency, wherein the audio processing system is configured to accept an audio bitstream having any one of at least two different predefined audio frame rates, and wherein the front-end component has variable maximal frame length and is operable in at least two modes corresponding to said different predefined audio frame rates, characterized in that: the predefined audio frame rates include a subgroup of audio frame rates with a range of variation of 5 % or less; and the front-end component is configured to use a same frame length for all frame rates in the subgroup. a front-end component, which includes: a dequantization stage adapted to repeatedly receive quantized spectral coefficients corresponding to one audio frame in the audio bitstream, and to output a first frequency-domain representation of an intermediate signal; and an inverse transform stage for receiving the first frequency-domain representation of the intermediate signal and synthesizing, based thereon, a time-domain representation of the intermediate signal; a dequantization stage adapted to repeatedly receive quantized spectral coefficients corresponding to one audio frame in the audio bitstream, and to output a first frequency-domain representation of an intermediate signal; and an inverse transform stage for receiving the first frequency-domain representation of the intermediate signal and synthesizing, based thereon, a time-domain representation of the intermediate signal; a processing stage, which includes: an analysis filterbank for receiving the time-domain representation of the intermediate signal and outputting a second frequency-domain representation of the intermediate signal; at least one processing component (124, 126) for receiving said second frequency-domain representation of the intermediate signal and outputting a frequency-domain representation of a processed audio signal; and a synthesis filterbank for receiving the frequency-domain representation of the processed audio signal and outputting a time-domain representation of the processed audio signal; and an analysis filterbank for receiving the time-domain representation of the intermediate signal and outputting a second frequency-domain representation of the intermediate signal; at least one processing component (124, 126) for receiving said second frequency-domain representation of the intermediate signal and outputting a frequency-domain representation of a processed audio signal; and a synthesis filterbank for receiving the frequency-domain representation of the processed audio signal and outputting a time-domain representation of the processed audio signal; and a sample rate converter for receiving said time-domain representation of the processed audio signal and outputting a reconstructed audio signal sampled at a target sampling frequency, wherein the audio processing system is configured to accept an audio bitstream having any one of at least two different predefined audio frame rates, and wherein the front-end component has variable maximal frame length and is operable in at least two modes corresponding to said different predefined audio frame rates, the predefined audio frame rates include a subgroup of audio frame rates with a range of variation of 5 % or less; and