Jitter reduction, best device?

Read up on Benchmark DAC1 also. They pretty much stake their product on its low jitter output even in the face of any extremely jittery input. No reviews with proper measurements have found fault with it, so far, although listeners may like or dislike it, according to taste - same for any product.

Your dac received a so-so review on it's debut in S'phile from Robert Harley. The Digital Lens would help, but a new version will debut this year, so I wouldn't purchase one unless you really want it(I've had four and sold the last two few months ago).

Reducing jitter may clean up some of the edges, but I doubt it's going to turn a somewhat clinical sound into a meaningfully richer or more musical experience. I think you'd be better off looking for a DAC that sounds more musical to you rather than trying to make your DAC sound a certain way when it may just not want to go there (I'm in a similar situation with my own DAC). As an example you've probably seen the review of the MSB Gold DAC on enjoythemusic.com comparing it to the Audio Note before and I don't mean this to disparage your DAC as it's obviously well respected, but DACs have come a long way in just the past few years so it may really be worth it to at least check out what some of the newer ones can do (including reduce jitter on their own) before throwing money at this one. Either way you'll be in a better position to make the right decision and you may even have some fun in the process.

Best of luck.

I agree you are probably better off trying a different DAC rather than trying to adjust what you have.

How about a tube dac? I can vouch for the mhdt DACs based on my very positive experience with the Paradisea. These can cost under $500 used.

Or the Benchmark is another way to go worth considering for around a grand.

i would stay away from the benchmark if you are thinking of using the usb port, it is inferior to the coax port.

i would agree that a jitter device will not perform miracles of converting a inferior signal to a fantastic signal. won't happen.

i have multiple setups using jitter devices and external dacs and they "all" have made a big difference in the sound. all connections induce jitter and some devices handle it better than others. why not use a jitter device to clean up the signal before it gets to the dac. garbage in, garbage out. another low cost dac is from audio alchemy if you want to go an inexpensive route. ps audio was at rmaf and they went over some new equipment that they will be coming out with that deals with the jitter issue.

the new audio research dac sounds promising. i heard it at rmaf and it sounded good and the AR rep indicated that they got the usb port down where it is equal to the other ports. something that the current dacs can't claim.

also, if you are using a music server, i isolate mine from the jitter device by using a toslink cable instead of a copper cable. there is no chance of any noise of the computer or the AE to get on this type of cable. if you isolate the jitter device, then you can use a coax or aes cable from the jitter device to go into your external dac.