A method is provided for receiving and restoring data from an optical recording medium exhibiting strong asymmetry in the regenerated RF signal. The method provides digital partial response asymmetry compensation of a digital RF signal. The asymmetry of the digital RF signal is detected through the measurement of the envelopes of a short T pulse (xT pulse) and a long T pulse (yT pulse), where the T is the bit clock of the recovered bit stream. Through the evaluation of the xT upper and lower envelopes and the asymmetry factor, upper and lower thresholds are determined. Only the asymmetric parts of the digital RF signal are selected and compensated.