A method for arithmetic decoding of a current spectral coefficient of a current frame using preceding spectral coefficients of the current frame and/or a previous frame, said preceding spectral coefficients being already decoded, wherein said preceding spectral coefficients and said current spectral coefficient are comprised in one or more quantised spectra resulting from quantising time-frequency-transformed video, audio or speech signal sample values, said method comprising the steps: - performing a first quantising in which the absolute values of the preceding spectral coefficients are quantised according a first quantisation scheme, wherein the performing the first quantising determines quantised preceding spectral coefficients; - determining a variance of the quantised preceding spectral coefficients, comprising determining a sum of the quantised preceding spectral coefficients and comparing the determined sum with at least one threshold; - using the determined variance for selecting one of at least two different non-linear second quantisation schemes; - performing a second quantising in which the quantised preceding spectral coefficients are further quantised according to the selected non-linear second quantisation scheme, wherein the performing the second quantising includes determining an output of the second quantising; - determining a context class out of at least two different context classes, wherein the context class is determined based on the output of the second quantising; - determining a probability density function using the determined context class and a mapping from the at least two different context classes to at least two different probability density functions; and - arithmetic decoding the current spectral coefficient based on the determined probability density function, the method further comprising the steps of - receiving a mode switching signal and/or a reset signal; and - using the mode switching signal and/or the reset signal for controlling the step of determining the context class, wherein, in response to the reset signal, only preceding spectral coefficients of the current frame are used for determining the context class, wherein the mapping is realized using a look-up table or a hash table. - performing a first quantising in which the absolute values of the preceding spectral coefficients are quantised according a first quantisation scheme, wherein the performing the first quantising determines quantised preceding spectral coefficients; - determining a variance of the quantised preceding spectral coefficients, comprising determining a sum of the quantised preceding spectral coefficients and comparing the determined sum with at least one threshold; - using the determined variance for selecting one of at least two different non-linear second quantisation schemes; - performing a second quantising in which the quantised preceding spectral coefficients are further quantised according to the selected non-linear second quantisation scheme, wherein the performing the second quantising includes determining an output of the second quantising; - determining a context class out of at least two different context classes, wherein the context class is determined based on the output of the second quantising; - determining a probability density function using the determined context class and a mapping from the at least two different context classes to at least two different probability density functions; and - arithmetic decoding the current spectral coefficient based on the determined probability density function, the method further comprising the steps of - receiving a mode switching signal and/or a reset signal; and - using the mode switching signal and/or the reset signal for controlling the step of determining the context class, wherein, in response to the reset signal, only preceding spectral coefficients of the current frame are used for determining the context class, <EOS>