The present invention, generally speaking, provides a digitally-tunable, echo-cancelling analog front end (AFE) for wireline digital communications. The analog front end is especially useful in a High-bit-rate Digital Subscriber Line (HDSL) or HDSL2 environment. An analog echo simulation path is provided capable of simulating echo from a wide variety of echo paths. Digitally controlled attenuators are provided in the transmission path and in the analog echo simulation path. Also provided is a digital-tunable equalizer stage. The equalizer stage is tuned to match the characteristics of the receive path. The same arrangement may be adapted for various DSL technologies, i.e., xDSL. There results an analog front end that is well-adapted to high-speed wireline communications.