This invention provides a magnetic recording medium evaluation apparatus and evaluation method which yield results having good correlation with error rate measurements even when comparing media with different structures. Signals from a function generator are recorded in a magnetic recording medium. The recording signals are also passed through a first digital filter to obtain ideal restored signals. Reproduced signals from the magnetic recording medium are sampled in synchronization with the output from the function generator, and the discrete signals are passed through a second digital filter to obtain restored signals. The outputs from the first and second digital filters are input to an operational amplifier, and the difference between the restored signals and the ideal restored signals is taken for each sampling of the recording signals. The signal-to-noise ratio of the ideal restored signal to the average of the absolute value of this difference is used to evaluate signal quality.