a method is shown for supporting a multichannel audio extension at an encoding end of a multichannel audio coding system . in order to improve the audio quality over a large frequency range , the method comprises transforming each channel of a multichannel audio signal into the frequency domain and dividing a bandwidth of the frequency domain signals into a first region of lower frequencies and at least one further region of higher frequencies . then , the frequency domain signals are encoded in each of the frequency regions with another type of coding to obtain parametric multichannel extension information for the respective frequency region . the invention relates equally to a method for supporting in a corresponding manner a multichannel audio extension at a decoding end . also shown are a corresponding encoder , a corresponding decoder , and corresponding devices , systems and software program products .