Will a cable of some determinate length not add some measurable, repeatable, non-arbitrary amount of jitter within a particular range of measurement, regardless of any jitter coming from the source component?No, absolutely not. As implied in some of the preceding posts, the amount of jitter that will result with a given cable in a given system, at the point where D/A conversion is performed within the DAC (which is where it matters) depends on a complex set of relationships and interactions between the parameters of the cable, including length, impedance accuracy, shielding effectiveness, shield resistance, propagation velocity, bandwidth, etc., and the technical characteristics of the components it is connecting, including signal risetimes and falltimes, impedance accuracy, jitter rejection capability, ground loop susceptibility, etc.
Many of the relevant component parameters are usually unspecified, and even if they were specified in great detail predictability of the net result of those interactions would still be limited at best.
Regards,
-- Al