Method and apparatus for processing transmitted data. A sampling circuit preferably performs lossy sampling of a continuous signal to provide a corresponding sequence of discrete samples at a sampling rate less than a Nyquist rate of the continuous signal. A processing circuit reconstructs an informational content of the continuous signal from the discrete samples, and operates to periodically insert additional samples into the sequence, which preferably increases an effective rate of said sampling to match or exceed the Nyquist rate. Preferably, the lossy discrete samples are temporarily stored in a memory space prior to reconstruction by the processing circuit. The sampling circuit preferably comprises an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) of an analog front end (AFE). The processing circuit preferably comprises a digital back end (DBE) employing partial-response, maximum-likelihood (PRML) detection. The additional samples are preferably provided by an iterative timing recovery (ITR) block of the DBE.