An ultrasonic diagnostic imaging system comprising: a probe including an array of transducer elements (8, 104); a transmit beamformer, coupled to the array of transducer elements (8, 104), and operable to transmit a beam (10, 20, 30) insonifying a plurality of laterally spaced line positions; a multiline receive beamformer (110a-110n), coupled to the array of transducer elements (8, 104), which is operable to produce a plurality of receive lines at the line positions in response to one transmit beam (10, 20, 30); a multiline combining circuit (114a-114n; 116a-116n; 118a-118n; 130a-130n; 120), responsive to a plurality of receive lines which are to be combined for a common line position and produced by the multiline receive beamformer (110a-110n) in response to a plurality of transmit beams (10, 20, 30), which is operable to combine the plurality of receive lines which are to be combined for a common line position to produce image 2-data, and which comprises a plurality of delays (118a-118n) which are operable to delay each receive line with a delay related to the location of each receive line in relation to the center of its transmit beam, and a summer which is operable to combine data from the plurality of receive lines which are to be combined for a common line position; and a display which produces an image utilizing the image data; characterized in that the multiline combining circuit further comprises: a plurality of amplitude detectors (130a-130n) which are operable to nonlinearly process the plurality of delayed receive lines before they are combined by the summer, in order to remove phase information from the signals and to incoherently combine the multilines. a probe including an array of transducer elements (8, 104); a transmit beamformer, coupled to the array of transducer elements (8, 104), and operable to transmit a beam (10, 20, 30) insonifying a plurality of laterally spaced line positions; a multiline receive beamformer (110a-110n), coupled to the array of transducer elements (8, 104), which is operable to produce a plurality of receive lines at the line positions in response to one transmit beam (10, 20, 30); a multiline combining circuit (114a-114n; 116a-116n; 118a-118n; 130a-130n; 120), responsive to a plurality of receive lines which are to be combined for a common line position and produced by the multiline receive beamformer (110a-110n) in response to a plurality of transmit beams (10, 20, 30), which is operable to combine the plurality of receive lines which are to be combined for a common line position to produce image 2-data, and which comprises a plurality of delays (118a-118n) which are operable to delay each receive line with a delay related to the location of each receive line in relation to the center of its transmit beam, and a summer which is operable to combine data from the plurality of receive lines which are to be combined for a common line position; and a display which produces an image utilizing the image data; characterized in that the multiline combining circuit further comprises: a plurality of amplitude detectors (130a-130n) which are operable to nonlinearly process the plurality of delayed receive lines before they are combined by the summer, in order to remove phase information from the signals and to incoherently combine the multilines.