As the density in digital magnetic recording is increased, various lin
ear as well as nonlinear signal distortions affect the performance of
detection algorithms. These include transition noise and electronics n
oise. The objective of this work is to evaluate the performances of se
veral detection techniques at different linear densities, noise enviro
nments and channel mismatch conditions using Monte Carlo simulation. T
he algorithms considered are the conventional peak detection, various
maximum likelihood sequence detection methods and decision feedback ty
pe techniques.