The subject of this paper is the design of low and minimum delay, exac
t reconstruction analysis-synthesis systems based on filter banks. Thi
s paper, for the first time, presents a time domain approach to the pr
oblem of designing FIR filter banks with adjustable reconstruction del
ays. It is shown that using a time domain formulation for the analysis
-synthesis systems, the system delay can be considered to be relativel
y independent of the length of the analysis and synthesis filters. Aft
er a summary of the time domain analysis and design framework, the des
ign of low and minimum delay systems is considered in detail. Several
design examples are provided in the paper to demonstrate the performan
ce of the design algorithm.