1. A method for processing signals read from a storage medium, comprising: receiving asynchronous input read signals and shaping the input read signals toward a desired fixed characteristic in an asynchronous time domain; transforming the read signal shaped toward the desired fixed characteristic in the asynchronous time domain to a synchronous time domain; applying a noise whitening filter in the asynchronous time domain to the read signal shaped toward the desired fixed characteristic to produce an output read signal shaped towards a generalized partial response polynomial; and receiving the read signal shaped towards the generalized partial response polynomial in the synchronous time domain to determine an output value comprising data represented by the input read signals, wherein the read signal shaped toward the generalized partial response polynomial is transformed to the synchronous time domain.