What does Jitter sound like?


I keep hearing the term jitter used to describe a kind of distortion that is especially problematic with CD Players.

What does Jitter sound like?
How can I identify it?
hdomke

Showing 3 responses by heyitsmedusty

Rotarius....THANK YOU!!

Over-clocked under-flow buffer bits blah blah blah blah...

The question was WHAT DOES JITTER SOUND LIKE, and the conversation degraded into a brain battle of engineers. If small amounts of jitter affected sound like small amounts of other distortions, then the above question would have a real answer such as could be given to the following questions:

What does mistracking sound like?
What does a ground-loop sound like?

These are things we can identify. Instead, we're arguing about whether we can even hear it or not, and the final answer (assuming it's something we actually can hear) seems to be "it sounds like less clarity." With an answer like that, you might as well be saying "ummmm... it just sounds worser."
Shadorne, I like where you're going with this. I think your results would make a very interesting read, and I whole-heartedly support the experiment! I think a good A/B switching with zero lag would be the best way to hear jitter and describe exactly what it does to the sound, other than "de-vinylize" it.