What does "jitter" sound like????

Hi Phild; It's been my experience that when a jitter reducer is used, it removes some to much of the shrillness, edginess, and a harsh electronic sound of particularly low priced CD players. In my case it particularly improved the upper mid-range and low treble, and made music less fatiguing.

I have used Sonic Frontiers Ultra Jitter Bugs with Sony CD players, ie CA9ES and 701ES with good results. The UJB also converts Toslink to coax. I've also used Theta's TLC successfully. You just have to try it to see if it improves the sound of your system. I haven't heard it, but the Monarchy DIP has gotten good reviews. Cheers. Craig

Pick up a copy of Stereophile's Test Disk #2. There's a jitter demonstration track on it that will show you what it sounds like. It won't necessarily help you to recognize when you are hearing it on your own player, though. If you have never heard a CD player without it, you may not recognize when it's there.

k

Jitter is easier to hear when it is removed. I use several systems with separate DACs. Each system was vastly improved by using true 75 ohm cables and connectors. IMHO jitter boxes are a must for digital separates. In one of my systems I have two Theta Digital TLCs fiollowed by a Monarchy DIP MKII and then an Assemblage UJB-1. The sound is fantastic. One time I removed the Theta TLCs and I though that system still sounded good, until I relaized that it was missing ambience, soundstage depth... Removing jitter improves bass (more solid) the highs are better (cymbals and bells more natural). Everything improves when jitter is reduced. The music is so natural and lifelike it is hard to believe the difference a good jitter filter or 75 ohm cable can make!

On my EAD DSP-7000 MKII there is an error indicator that shows a "jitter" or error reading a digital data. You can hear the jitter from the good quality DAC coupled with bad quality CD-player or Transport. Usually when it there is an error occured from the digital output very often DAC's possibility to correct a huge amount of "trash" is limited and it goes on and on and on up to the end of CD. Even if there is a jitter reducer is present, it may not be enogh to eliminate it.
It sounds like a part of the sound bandwidth dissapears or becomes shallow and unrecognizable. It may be bass, midup or midlow -- any part that you actually cannot predict. At the same time, if I use an analogue output of CD-player without my DAC, everything goes more or less stable certainly with large overall audiable performance sacrifice.
You WILL NOT hear it if there is a good quality dedicated transport coupled with decent DAC, also if there is a bad quality player coupled with the bad quality DAC(with huge amount of oversampling) since the bad quality DACs aren't that sensitive to errors and designed to enhance the signal rather than linearly reproduce it.
The ideal DAC does not have any oversamplings.
These tests were made with Rega Planet CD-player in comparison with my dedicated Monarchy Audio DT40b transport.