Two multi digital signal processor systems for high speed signal processing are presented. Both systems can be configured with a variable number of processor units. Thus, there is sufficient computational power for real-time implementations of high order adaptive filter algorithms as required for echo cancellation, e.g., in hands-free telephone equipment. One system is based on the DSP32 floating-point DSP from AT&T. Monitoring and debugging is done with a standard PC system. The second system uses Fujitsu's MB8764 fixed-point DSP. It is controlled by an '80186 AMs-M-Bus' microcomputer board. The architectures are designed to support efficient parallel implementations of high order adaptive algorithms and of multirate systems for echo compensation in frequency subbands (i.e., block processing).