A wireless device with multiple antennae and configured to support orthogonal frequency-division multiplexed (OFDM), multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communications of a wireless local area network (LAN) among multiple wireless devices over a shared wireless communication medium on a shared communication channel. The wireless access device comprises: a mixed-mode MIMO detector configured to allocate a mix of linear and non-linear MIMO detectors among received OFDM sub-channels of the shared communication channel, thereby reducing a level of complexity associated with reception of MIMO streams exclusively via non-linear MIMO detectors.