An apparatus for encoding an audio signal having a stream of audio samples 100 comprises: a windower 102 for applying a prediction coding analysis window 200 to the stream of audio samples to obtain windowed data for a prediction analysis and for applying a transform coding analysis window 204 to the stream of audio samples to obtain windowed data for a transform analysis, wherein the transform coding analysis window is associated with audio samples within a current frame of audio samples and with audio samples of a predefined portion of a future frame of audio samples being a transform-coding look-ahead portion 206, wherein the prediction coding analysis window is associated with at least the portion of the audio samples of the current frame and with audio samples of a predefined portion of the future frame being a prediction coding look-ahead portion 208, wherein the transform coding look-ahead portion 206 and the prediction coding look-ahead portion 208 are identically to each other or are different from each other by less than 20% of the prediction coding look-ahead portion 208 or less than 20% of the transform coding look-ahead portion 206; and an encoding processor 104 for generating prediction coded data for the current frame using the windowed data for the prediction analysis or for generating transform coded data for the current frame using the windowed data for the transform analysis.