diff --git a/src/nmreval/io/asciireader.py b/src/nmreval/io/asciireader.py
index f8232b1..dddf87d 100644
--- a/src/nmreval/io/asciireader.py
+++ b/src/nmreval/io/asciireader.py
@@ -15,7 +15,7 @@ NUMBERRE = re.compile(r'[0-9]\.*[0-9]*[Ee]*[+-]*[0-9]*')
 
 
 class AsciiReader:
-    delimiters = ['\t', ' ', ',']
+    # delimiters = ['\t', ' ', ',']
 
     def __init__(self, fname):
         self.fname = None
@@ -49,7 +49,8 @@ class AsciiReader:
         with self.fname.open('r') as f:
             for i, line in enumerate(islice(f, len(self.header)+len(self.lines), num_lines)):
                 line = line.rstrip('\n\t\r, ')
-                line = re.split(r'[\s,;]', line)
+                line = re.sub(r'[\t ;,] *', ';', line)
+                line = line.split(';')
 
                 try:
                     comment_start = line.index('#')