jitter


I am pretty sure I understand jitter generated by streamers and/or DACs. My question  is, when a digital recording is created, can there already be jitter in the digital data itself from the ADC? If so, can this ever be corrected during playback, either by the streamer or DAC?

jw944ts

Showing 4 responses by mlsstl

No current DAC can remove jitter that was embedded in the file by the ADC when the recording was made. This is the same as trying to "fix" a recording where the wrong mics were used or poorly placed, or bad mixing, balance, EQ and other decisions were made during production. The latter items impacted many analog recordings beginning decades before digital recording was used.

The best a DAC can do is not add any more jitter and make the situation worse.

One can use tone controls or EQ to improve things, but you'll never totally fix a poor recording any more than you can unscramble a scrambled egg.

I suspect at some point a sophisticated AI could improve things, but even then, it would still be a guess as to what should have been done in the studio years or decades ago.

Hopefully though, we can enjoy the music itself for what it is rather than obsessing over recording quality and technical what-ifs. Good stereos are nice and I certainly enjoy mine, but I can still have a lot of fun and enjoyment listening to a good tune on the car's factory radio. For those of a certain age, think about al lthe great times you had as a teenage listening to the top-40 tunes on your AM radio.

I suspect adjusting the DAC's buffer will fix your dropout problem, but I'm rather skeptical that the issue is "excessive jitter" from the streamer or recording.

>> "manufacturer is sending an updated model which will have an way to adjust for jitter in the input"

That's my story and I'm sticking with it!