The invention provides for improved signal to noise ratios in evaluation techniques. This is done by acquiring a signal, processing it to obtain a complex form thereof, obtaining a filtering factor from the complex form and processing the acquired signal with the filtering factor. The signal may be areturned ultrasonic, radar or sonar signal which may be reflected from a suitably sharp pulse. In particular, the invention may he used to evaluate articles to detect defects therein. In a preferred form, the complex form is filtered with a number of complex filters and the phases of the complex filtered signals determined. These phases are then used to provide the filtering factor.