A signal is generated at a source 100a and a first portion of the signal 102a is processed locally by a processor 104a. This first portion of the signal 102a that is locally processed, is comprised of data, which would be prone to noise masking or loss, in its transition from the source 100a to a non-local analog-to-digital converter in the absence of a processing step. The remaining portion of the signal 106a is converted at a non-local analog-to-digital converter 108a, to produce a first digital signal 110a. The processed signal 112a is converted non-locally at a non-local converter 114a to produce a second digital signal 116a, finally the first digital signal 100a is combined with the second digital signal 116a to produce a digital output signal 118a.