This paper describes a bandwidth-efficient method for improved decoding of MPEG-AAC bitstreams when the encoded data are transmitted over a noisy channel. Assuming that the critical part (headers) of each frame has been correctly received, we apply a soft-decoding method to reconstruct the scalefactors, which represent a highly noise-sensitive part of the bitstream. The damaged spectral data are reconstructed using an intra-frame error concealment method. Two methods for soft decoding of scalefactors are described: blind mode and informed mode. In the latter, a very small amount of additional data is included in the bitstream. At medium SNR, this method provides a significant improvement in perceptual signal quality compared to the classical hard-decoding method.