If your system has jitter (only thing to take note of for digital connections; linearity, THD, crosstalk, IMD, SNR, etc. are all near identical), then that results in a rise in the noise floor, which would sound like static, it would be heavily masked by music, but if you played say a 10kHz tone on your digital device, and you heard some background static, then you have audible jitter.
We are talking random jitter here (not periodic), and if you want an example of what poor random jitter sounds like as a reference point:
http://www.sereneaudio.com/blog/what-does-jitter-sound-like
Take note of how 2ns of random jitter raises the noise floor to ~ -80dBFS, and keep in mind how I said even cheap DACs can reduce it to -100dBFS or lower (+20dB is the same as having 100x more wattage, so in this case 1/100 the wattage as it’s the opposite direction).
We are talking random jitter here (not periodic), and if you want an example of what poor random jitter sounds like as a reference point:
http://www.sereneaudio.com/blog/what-does-jitter-sound-like
Take note of how 2ns of random jitter raises the noise floor to ~ -80dBFS, and keep in mind how I said even cheap DACs can reduce it to -100dBFS or lower (+20dB is the same as having 100x more wattage, so in this case 1/100 the wattage as it’s the opposite direction).