I am pricing out hardware for 2 Asterisk (trixbox) systems, they are both smaller (one is a 4 line and the other is a 8 line, both analog TDM800p and TDM400p respectively) installs. And the one thing I have come across is the significant price difference in hardware with and without hardware echo cancellation ($200 vs $600). I have the plans ready to go and know what kind of equipment that I want to purchase for these, except when it comes down to this. My setup includes some of the cheap Cisco IP phones and 1 nice color touch screen phone (he is the head of the company, so he gets what he wants). I am not worried about the echo over the IP side, but I am over the analog side.
TLDR; should I spend extra money and get echo cancellation on my Asterisk system?