An apparatus in a signal receiver, such as an optical signal receiver, is provided. An adaptive equalizer provides an equalized output indicative of a received signal. A feedback component receives the equalized output and provides feedback to the adaptive equalizer. A carrier recovery component receives the equalized output from the adaptive equalizer provides estimates of symbols. The carrier recovery component is partially or fully disjoint from the feedback component, thus removing the carrier recovery component from equalizer the feedback loop. The feedback component can include an initial carrier recovery component and a phase rotation and detection component. The initial carrier recovery component generates a carrier recovery output based on the equalized output. The phase rotation and detection component performs a phase rotation based on the carrier recovery output.