A method of decoding a compressed Higher Order Ambisonics, HOA, sound representation of a sound or sound field, wherein the compressed HOA representation comprises a basic compressed sound representation of the sound or sound field having a plurality of components, basic side information for decoding the basic compressed sound representation to a basic reconstructed sound representation, and enhancement side information for parametrically enhancing the basic reconstructed sound representation, wherein the compressed HOA representation has been encoded in a plurality of hierarchical layers using layered encoding, and wherein the plurality of hierarchical layers include a base layer and at least two hierarchical enhancement layers, the method comprising: receiving a bit stream containing the compressed HOA representation corresponding to the plurality of hierarchical layers, wherein the bit stream comprises, in the base layer, a basic side information payload including the basic side information, wherein the bit stream further comprises, in each layer, a respective enhancement side information payload including enhancement side information for parametrically enhancing the basic reconstructed sound representation obtainable from data included in the respective layer and any layers lower than the respective layer, wherein each layer comprises a respective group of components among the plurality of components of the basic compressed sound representation, wherein the number of groups corresponds to the number of hierarchical layers, wherein the groups are obtainable by sub-dividing the plurality of components, and wherein the plurality of components corresponds to a plurality of monaural signals that represent either predominant sound signals or coefficient sequences of an original HOA representation, and decoding the basic compressed HOA representation based on the basic side information and the enhancement side information, wherein decoding the basic compressed HOA representation comprises obtaining the basic reconstructed sound representation using the basic side information, and parametrically enhancing the obtained basic reconstructed sound representation using the enhancement side information to obtain a reconstructed sound representation, wherein the basic side information includes basic independent side information specifying decoding of first monaural signals among the plurality of monaural signals, wherein the first monaural signals are individual monaural signals that can be decoded independently of any other monaural signals of the plurality of monaural signals. receiving a bit stream containing the compressed HOA representation corresponding to the plurality of hierarchical layers, wherein the bit stream comprises, in the base layer, a basic side information payload including the basic side information, wherein the bit stream further comprises, in each layer, a respective enhancement side information payload including enhancement side information for parametrically enhancing the basic reconstructed sound representation obtainable from data included in the respective layer and any layers lower than the respective layer, wherein each layer comprises a respective group of components among the plurality of components of the basic compressed sound representation, wherein the number of groups corresponds to the number of hierarchical layers, wherein the groups are obtainable by sub-dividing the plurality of components, and wherein the plurality of components corresponds to a plurality of monaural signals that represent either predominant sound signals or coefficient sequences of an original HOA representation, and decoding the basic compressed HOA representation based on the basic side information and the enhancement side information, wherein decoding the basic compressed HOA representation comprises obtaining the basic reconstructed sound representation using the basic side information, and parametrically enhancing the obtained basic reconstructed sound representation using the enhancement side information to obtain a reconstructed sound representation, wherein the basic side information includes basic independent side information specifying decoding of first monaural signals among the plurality of monaural signals, wherein the first monaural signals are individual monaural signals that can be decoded independently of any other monaural signals of the plurality of monaural signals.