Abstract: An echo canceller in a system, having a long impulse response such as in an acoustic system, which employs a fast Fourier transform to transform input data represented in the time domain into signals represented in the frequency domain to reduce calculations. To solve the problem of a long delay, the impulse response length is divided into a plurality of blocks. Each block then has a decreased number of samples within each block. Thus, a fast Fourier transform and finite impulse response type digital filtering are effected, so that the processing delay is decreased while the amount of calculations is kept small.