In the echo planar imaging (EPI) method of operating a nuclear magnetic resonance (magnetic resonance imaging) tomography apparatus, the necessary, rapid switching of gradients having a high amplitude usually cannot be achieved with square-wave gradients, and therefore a read-out gradient having a sinusoidal shape is generally used. Given a chronologically equidistant sampling of the nuclear magnetic resonance signal in the time domain, however, a sampling in the k-space with different rates is present. The bandwidth of the signal is proportional to the sampling rate in the k-space. In the method disclosed herein, bandwidth of a bandpass filter or a low-pass filter in the signal processing circuit for the nuclear magnetic resonance signal is adapted to the time dependent bandwith of the nuclear magnetic resonance signal, i.e., to the sampling rate in the k-space. The bandwidth is increased with increasing sampling rate. The signal-to-noise ratio is noticeably improved.