Introduction Since the introduction of parallel imaging techniques [1,0], the numbers of elements in phased array coils have been continuously increasing to achieve high SNR and short scan time. In order to acquire the signal of those elements, the typical MR systems have had to support an increasing number of receive channels. Typical MRI systems are equipped with 8 receive channels as standard, with options for 16 and 32 channels. This trend towards higher number of channels has resulted in an increased complexity of the MRI system [0] with increased initial costs; subsequent upgrades to increase the number of channels is also costly because a substantial expansion of the RF chain is required. Moreover, the connection to the system of a coil with more elements than the number of receive channels forced developers to build complex logic switches in the coil and/or to multiplex and compress the signal [4,5]. This work describes a scalable digital broadband receive system architecture which no longer limits the number of receive channels that can be connected and provides a consistent signal fidelity independent of the number of channels.