In this paper we present a pipelined implementation of an iterative threshold detector, which makes the same decisions as a maximum likelihood sequence detector (MLSD) on some, but not necessarily all, bits. We apply this as a first stage detector in a direct sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) interference-limited multiuser system. In combination with the single-user matched filter (MF) detector we obtain improved performance and lower complexity than with the decorrelating receiver for a limited number of simultaneous users, e.g. up to 25 users with a spreading factor of 127.