An audio system has a base station, a speaker and one or more wireless microphones. The audio system operates to receive audio information from both a far-end audio source and a near-end audio source and to process the audio information for transmission to a far-end audio system. The wireless microphones have an electrically conductive element connected to a touch sensitive switch, and the electrically conductive element is proximate to an outer perimeter surface of the microphones. When the outer perimeter surface of the microphone is touched, the switch is activated which sends a microphone handling signal to the base station. The base station uses the microphone handling signal to control an operational characteristic of an audio signal processing function running on the base station.