A method for encoding and decoding media signals, includes the operations of generating at a transmitting side multiple descriptions associated to data of the media signals through a downsampling operation performed on the data, and decoding at a receiving side the multiple descriptions for reconstructing the data by merging the multiple descriptions. The operation of generating multiple descriptions further includes the operations of obtaining a spectral representation of the data, including bands associated to different ranges, the bands being obtained by a suitable quantization operation and including at least one highly quantized band, that is subjected to a higher degree of quantization. A scrambling operation is performed on the spectral representation by moving the at least one highly quantized band to a different range, the scrambling operation being performed prior the downsampling operation. In decoding, a descrambling operation is performed before the merging operation on the multiple descriptions.