Audio system with centralized audio signal processing

A wireless audio system, comprising:

• two or more sets of a plurality of geographically distributed wireless microphone groups, each of the wireless microphone groups having at least one wireless microphone and each of the wireless microphone groups being associated with at least one of a plurality of loudspeakers;
• two or more antenna arrays each comprising a plurality of geographically distributed antenna groups, each one of the antenna groups having at least one antenna which is in communication with one of the plurality of geographically distributed wireless microphone groups;
• and
• a digital signal processor in communication with each one of the two or more antenna arrays, the digital signal processor having functionality that operates to remove acoustic echo from audio signals received from each of the two or more antenna arrays.

A method of processing an audio signal in a wireless audio system, comprising:

• capturing, at a digital signal processor, a first sample of audio information from the audio signal at a first system time, and transmitting the audio signal to at least one of two or more of an antenna array, each antenna array having a plurality of geographically distributed antenna groups and each antenna group having at least one antenna;
• transmitting the audio signal to a loudspeaker associated with at least one of the antenna groups in at least one of the two or more of the antenna arrays, and the loudspeaker playing the audio signal;
• receiving and capturing, at a wireless microphone associated with the at least one of the antenna groups, at a second system time a second sample of audio information in an acoustic audio signal that substantially corresponds to audio information captured from the audio signal in the first sample of audio information at the first system time, and sending the second sample of audio information to the digital signal processor, and
• using audio information derived from the first sample of audio information captured at the first system time to cancel substantially all of the audio information comprising the second sample of audio information captured at the second system time.