jitter

@mlsstl , +1.

Good answer.

Coralkong, if you remember audioengr Agon member, has reclocking box to solve this jitter issue?

I don’t think jitter causes dropouts. Are you using WiFi? If you are, that’s more likely the issue I think.

Networks have jitter, but it’s defined differently than what we think of in audio. It’s variance in packet timings and if bad enough, can certainly overwhelm a DAC’s jitter reduction/buffers. If it's bad enough though it's called "packet loss" instead. I usually have a good Internet connection but I still set my streamer’s buffer relatively high to 10 seconds or more to avoid issues.

If on Wifi, use a free Wifi analyzer for your PC or phone to make sure you have a strong signal that isn’t shared by many other router signals.

BTW, recording studios use Master Clocks to synchronize multiple ADCs or DACs together. Not to reduce jitter.

As I understand it, while external clocks are excellent the distance due to the cable lengths actually can increase jitter vs. an internal clock of the best DACs today.  The internal femtoclocks used today sit right next to the DAC so don't have the same distance issues.  This is similar to the need to keep RAM right next to the CPUs.

It’s quite possible that an external clock can merely change or worsen jitter performance.

I think it's generally agreed that modern A/D converters sound significantly better than the earliest ones. Whether this is due to jitter is open to debate but something changed for the better. I have a few early digital recordings that sound atrocious and it isn't just the EQ. They are shining examples of poor digital transfer. It doesn't matter what kind of DAC I play them through - they still sound gritty and brittle. 

This phenomenon was one of the reasons that the remastering business took off fairly soon after the CD was released. One example is HDCD releases. Pacific Microsonics made the A/D converters that allowed HDCD encoding as an option. These converters were considered a substantial leap forward and were felt my many studios to be the best available at the time (they are still used by some studios). Some HDCD collectors, myself included, feel that one of the main reasons HDCD remastered discs sound better than their original releases is that the converters were so much better. The HDCD encoding is icing on the cake.