Optimum detection of binary DPSK yields a bit error probability, P
eof (1/2) exp (

), the classic result, but requires a reference carrier in-frequency but not necessarily in-phase with the received carrier. Any other detector will yield degraded results. Several well known textbooks give a derivation for a suboptimum detector with the above result but neglect intersymbol interference. In this paper the optimum

-ary DPSK receiver is shown and a derivation of P
efor the binary case given. Two suboptimum detectors are analyzed and their performance is shown to be 1 to 2 dB worse than the optimum.