Circuitry, embodied in a media subsystem (10A), reproduces a speech or other type of audio signal, and is operable when playing back audio data for reducing synchronization delay. A method operates by, when a frame containing audio data is sent to a decoder (20), measuring the synchronization delay; determining by how much the synchronization delay should be adjusted; and adjusting the synchronization delay in a content-aware manner by adding or removing one or more audio samples in a selected current frame or in a selected subsequent frame so as not to significantly degrade the quality of the played back audio data. When the synchronization delay is adjusted by more than one audio sample, the adjustment can be made by all of the determined audio samples in one adjustment, or the adjustment is made by less than all of the determined audio samples by a plurality of adjustments. The step of adjusting selects, if possible, an unvoiced frame and discriminates against a transient frame. The step of determining includes measuring an average amount of time that a frame resides in a jitter buffer (18), and adjusting the synchronization delay so that the average duration approaches a desired jitter buffer residency duration.