DAC's : The missing feature: Signal quality


One thing I wish DAC's would provide is some idea of how much jitter and noise a particular input provides. This is something which I think with a little work could be gleaned from the input circuits.

I want something that tells me "woah, that's a really dirty signal coming in, but i"ll do the best I can with it."

One common source of noise is ground loops. Another may be high jitter from a source like Apple TV. This would also help us evaluate the benefits (if any) of various signal cleaners and reclockers.

Best,
E
erik_squires
Erik, I presume one could adjust the sensitivity of the LED indicator (or use a multi-colored LED) that reports distinct levels of jitter. Seems like one would need some sort of jitter level sensor on the output digital stream just prior to final analog conversion. That sensor could be calibrated to feed a signal to the LED to indicate jitter level. Not convinced that the DAC jitter reduction would not overwhelm whatever jitter level you’re trying to detect in the input cable. But presumably one could put a similar sensor on the input side of the DAC input circuit. 
Erik:
I always like that you are thoughtful about our hobby and I conceptually like your idea. If a DAC sounded exceptional to me, and it had this feature, and it could be demonstrated to make a difference by allowing the user to rationally react to it, then I would consider it a value add that might affect my purchasing decision. But, it probably wouldn't be a major reason to buy a DAC (for me) and might not survive a company's internal cost benefit analysis, if I am DAC manufacturers' target audience (I'm a 50 something male passionate about audio that owns or has owned more than 6 DAC or CD players in the last 5 years.) As a former R&D guy in an unrelated field, I've seen forwarding thinking ideas die many times because a company didn't think there was an increase in profitability attached to the concept.
Regards
Al     
thank you @astewart8944 - Like I was thinking, maybe this is better as an external gadget.

To put this another way, most of us have no way to tell if a digital source is very poor, mediocre, or great. I'd like a little gadget that could tell me.

Best,
E
DAC's isolate jitter maybe they could have something that lets you know how much jitter they isolated from the incoming stream before sent to the reclocker. If it only added $10 or $20 to the cost might be an interesting doodad to watch .
All DAC's attempt to isolate themselves from jitter, ground loop and noise and do so with relatively different levels of success.

I think given the drop in processing power, cost of excellent clocks and DAC chips, maybe this can take over after everyone is done with MQA. :)

Best,
E