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 2 responses by rotarius

I am skeptical about all this. To me, the biggest flaw is the sampling rate itself. A well recorded sacd can sound quite amazing even on a budget player with mediocre parts. The cd layer won't sound as good and is not as resolving with the same player. With all due respect Mr. Lessloss, removing a few pico seconds of jitter seems like polishing a turd. So what does jitter sound like? I am sure excessive jitter plays a role in masking detail to some extent but it sounds more like marketing hype backed up by "white papers".
Having samples with jitter to compare would be meaningless unless the amount of jitter is quantified. Adding jitter to the point of making it an order of magnitude higher (nano seconds) than most decent players would not prove anything to me. Can anyone demonstrate that music through a cdp with around 300-400 ps of jitter as tested by stereophile would somehow gain astonishing resoluton by decreasing the jitter to say 100 ps as claimed by lessloss and the like? Does jitter get increasingly irrelevant as the sampling frequency is increased in the same player with a cheap clock, switching power supply and all?