Systems and methods for providing forward error correction for a multi-channel audio signal are described. Blocks of an audio stream are buffered into a frame. A transformation can be applied that compacts the energy of each block into a plurality of transformed channels. The energy compaction transform may compact the most energy of a block into the first transformed channel and to compact decreasing amounts of energy into each subsequent transformed channel. The transformed frame may be encoded using any suitable codec and transmitted in a packet over a network. Improved forward error correction may be provided by attaching a low bit rate encoding of the first transformed channel to a subsequent packet. To reconstruct a lost packet, the low bit rate encoding of the first channel for the lost packet may be combined with a packet loss concealment version of the other channels, constructed from a previously-received packet.