2. digital
  3. 141116-122613

Jitter, CDPs, Transports and Streaming

In my personal, digital audio journey, I have found that I prefer the sound of CD players over streaming through my computer to a DAC. I have tried 4-5 different steaming/transport configurations and found CD players to sound more natural with less digital glare and cause less listener fatigue in each comparison I made. I attribute this to jitter and the increased levels caused by noisy computer environments and the additional circuitry and wiring between a source/transport and DAC. I am sure component quality plays a role here and I’m sure there are CD transport and DAC combinations that sound better than some standalone CD players.

I got to thinking that DACs have buffers that they read from and realized that the upstream source shouldn’t matter, but they apparently do. Why doesn’t the buffer completely eliminate the relevance of the quality of the source? Are there types of DACs, like asynchronous DACs, that make the CD transport or computer source quality irrelevant?
mkgus

Showing 2 responses by mzkmxcv

mzkmxcv
777 posts
 
@teaudio

Noise floor and dynamic ranging capacity have little to do with being able to hear jitter in a signal. The two have no direct correlation, only minimal aspects of correlation.

Jitter in a system results in a raised noise floor and possibly power supply noise. The only way to hear jitter is if you have a low enough noise floor. However, jitter thru wired connections has been pretty much a non-issue for years.
mzkmxcv
777 posts
 
I have only evidence of one DAC, the Benchmark DAC3, that is generally immune to incoming jitter

It’s J-Test shows jitter reduction at >-148dBFS, amazing. However, the $77 Topping D10’s J-Test shows reduction of jitter down to -128dBFS. So, if they hear no jitter on the DAC3 and do hear jitter on any other competent DAC, it’s simply placebo, as our hearing in even a treated room is not better than 100dB.
More to discover