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Noob Alert!! What does jitter sound like?

post #1 of 45
9/27/06 at 6:52pm
Thread Starter 
In the constant pursuit of audible perfection... How do I know if I have it or not????

I imagine you could see it on a scope though.

**edit**
Mods please feel free to move to dedicated source components forum, if thats where this belongs.

thanks
Garrett
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post #2 of 45
9/27/06 at 7:21pm
WTF is jitter?


(Yes rules)
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post #3 of 45
9/27/06 at 7:29pm
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by OGTL
WTF is jitter?


(Yes rules)

thats also a good question....
HELP!!!??
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post #4 of 45
9/27/06 at 9:50pm
The digital signal coming through is not perfectly at 1 bit per Hz. It will have one a little long, one a little short, and every so many cycles, make some sharper adjustments. On average, you'll have the proper data rate, but hardly ever at any single cycle, or small grouping.

Here's an article on it with nice visuals

What it sounds like, as an artifact, though...*shrugs*
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post #5 of 45
9/28/06 at 8:37am
http://www6.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=198428

Greetings from Hannover!

Manfred / lini
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post #6 of 45
1/28/10 at 3:19pm
I have searched about, but there is no clear answer to the question of "what does jitter sound like?"

Having read up on the subject, particularly the huge thread on the Benchmark DAC, I had convinced myself that jitter is a major problem. Now I am not so sure as there is so little on audible jitter and what it sounds like.

I get occasional cracks in the sound, is that jitter? Or does jitter reduce clarity?

So I thought I would resurrect a thread to try again and find out if there is an answer to this.
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post #7 of 45
1/28/10 at 9:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Prog Rock Man View Post
I have searched about, but there is no clear answer to the question of "what does jitter sound like?"

Having read up on the subject, particularly the huge thread on the Benchmark DAC, I had convinced myself that jitter is a major problem. Now I am not so sure as there is so little on audible jitter and what it sounds like.

I get occasional cracks in the sound, is that jitter? Or does jitter reduce clarity?

So I thought I would resurrect a thread to try again and find out if there is an answer to this.
Occasional cracks in sound is not jitter. It could be a myriad of things, more than likely buffer issues. When I listen with my network drive I have to adjust my buffer length, if not I get dropouts. Once adjusted everything is great. When I listen with my local HD, my buffer goes back to where it was.

Jitter is inaudible. If it is not then I must have missed it..

Jitter is something we want to remove, however, can't hear. It goes to show that after a 3.5 year bump of this thread there is no clear answer on its audibility. The more you read about it the more confused you'll get. The more you'll want to hear it, the more frustrated you'll get...Let's listen to the music and not worry about "What Is And What Should Never Be"...BUT, If it is then let's make it inaudible.

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post #8 of 45
1/28/10 at 10:46pm
From 2008...

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f7/what-does-jitter-sound-like-317981/

From 2006...

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f4/what-does-jitter-sound-like-166393/

Through these and other threads, on this and other boards, no consistent answer has emerged, and no answer at all has been revealed that isn't a common distortion or problem that could be attributed to many other things. Jitter has been blamed for generally dull, lifeless, flat sound. And it has been blamed for generally harsh, brittle, edgy sound. It has been blamed for a rise in the noise floor and for non-linear distortions indistinguishable from more commonly understood problems like harmonic and intermodulation distortion. In engineering circles, at least those not associated with audiophile products, it is generally considered to be at levels way below audibility, even in pretty common consumer-grade products of modern design. It is almost certainly inaudible on all but the most revealing reference systems (and it's not likely it is audible there either). It is certainly such a small issue, if it is an issue at all, that it is masked by noise and distortion present in most recordings and nearly all transducers.

The best advice I could possibly give you is to forget about jitter and enjoy the music. But you're here; that doesn't seem very likely.

p
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post #9 of 45
1/28/10 at 10:50pm
Ironically, it's the same wispy sound as dollar bills falling from your wallet...
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post #10 of 45
1/28/10 at 10:53pm
I believe that is correct.

P
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post #11 of 45
1/29/10 at 6:07am
Quote:
Originally Posted by tim3320070 View Post
Ironically, it's the same wispy sound as dollar bills falling from your wallet...
X 3

Though I feel I have heard jitter - I am like the rest of us, in pursuit of perfection - cost me thousands before I understood jitter. I don't recommend this course of action to any one.
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post #12 of 45
1/29/10 at 7:31am
Dan Lavry wrote up some nice posts about jitter in the forums. I'd see if you can find the ones where he talks about the various distortions that can be caused by jitter. However, they are audible in the sense that they are noise, but rather, can cause distortion of various kinds. Unfortunately, without access to some very expensive measuring equipment, we're left with taking stabs in the dark at fixing a problem we don't know the severity of.
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post #13 of 45
1/29/10 at 9:51am
Thanks for the superb replies. I have been reading up a lot since Benchmark and now Naim have come out with 'zero jitter' products. I have now come over to the side that spending tons on a DAC to remove jitter is not necessarily going to give you any SQ results.
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post #14 of 45
1/29/10 at 12:23pm
I always thought jitter was like the sounds that come out of my laptop's crappy onboard sound when my laptop is using the CD drive or accessing the hard drive and you can hear all kinds of junk.
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post #15 of 45
1/29/10 at 12:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MD1032 View Post
I always thought jitter was like the sounds that come out of my laptop's crappy onboard sound when my laptop is using the CD drive or accessing the hard drive and you can hear all kinds of junk.
Pretty sure that's just EMI as a result of increased load generating more electromagnetic waves in the coils.
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