Synthesized stereo combined with acoustic echo cancellation for desktop conferencing

One promising application in communications is desktop conferencing, which can involve several participants over a widely distributed area. Synthesized stereophonic sound will enable a listener to spatially separate one remote talker from another and thereby improve understanding. In such a scenario, we assume we are located in a hands-free environment where the composite acoustic signal is presented over loudspeakers, thus requiring acoustic echo cancellation. In this paper, we explain some of the methods that can be used to synthesize stereo sound and how such methods can be combined efficiently with stereo acoustic echo cancellation in the face of several difficult problems