1. A data acquisition system for detecting ions of interest in a spectrometer, the system comprising: an ion detector for detecting ions and generating ion detection signals indicative of detected ions striking said ion detector; an initial processing module for receiving and processing the ion detection signals and for supplying processed signals; and a spectra processing module for receiving the processed signals, generating spectra, and supplying the generated spectra to an external processor for post-processing, wherein said spectra processing module comprises a peak histogram filtering circuit for establishing a threshold peak intensity level based upon a peak histogram, a selected spectra reporting rate, and a transmission capacity of a transmission line through which spectra are supplied to the external processor, and for supplying only spectra peaks to the external processor that meet the threshold peak intensity level.