what is jitter supposed to sound like?

Bombaywalla,

Thanks, I stand corrected. Oversampling does NOT help drive jitter outside the audible range (I was definitely confused there).

I believe, at most, oversampling or upsampling can reduce jitter wideband noise effects by the factor of over or upsampling. Also provided the output clock is not synchonized to the input clock...you can get further jitter benefits from a good upsampling circuit.

I agree with your definition of low cost...definitely Walmart is not where I would start for an audiophile system. I meant that you don't necessarily have to spend several thousands of $ to avoid jitter problems these days. Your clarifications helped.

I could be wrong..but the power supplies and analog outputs in a player or DAC seem to make the largest impact in the sound. I agree that the jitter reduction does increase the focus of the soundstage. Better analog outputs and power supplies seem to reduce the grain and edginess associated with some players. This also increases the dynamic contrast between softer and louder passages in the music. Blurring is also reduced by a combination of the three IME. Killing as much noise as possible between the power supply and the rest of the unit seems to increase the focus of the soundstage as well.

I found this article on Jitter.

http://www.regonaudio.com/Jitter.html

REG describes the sound as an audible roughness in the case of the Stereophile test CD No 2. (Pure 11 Khz tone with excessive and specific jitter added, which created sideband noise smack in the middle of the most sensitive part of the hearing range...probably a worst case scenario)

Gmood1, you are definitely on to something. One effect of power supply noise and ripple is that it changes the threshold at which digital gates switch. This can have the effect of advancing or delaying a digital transition and thereby increasing jitter.

Jlambrick, Gmood1,
it is indeed correct to say that improvement in the digital & analog power supplies improves the sound. The less ripple there is in the power supplies & the better their ability to supply current helps in minimizing the perturbations to the electronics.

yet another effect that exacerbates jitter-like effects is the transport-DAC interconnect cable (when using separates). Most cables, I believe, are improperly terminated & result in reflections. This has some of the same effects as jitter - smearing the overall presentation.

the reason I said that I've not heard the sound of jitter is 'cuz poorly designed power supplies show up as nearly the same effects I stated above (music loses its snap, imaging not being precise, high freq being edgy/sharp/brittle) as the effects of jitter!
So, when one hears loss of low level details or poor imaging or sharp highs which effect is to be blamed? Excessive jitter or poor power supplies (or poor implentation) or improper interconnect length & terminations?
I have found it hard to separate the 2 issues, in general. I can probably zero-in for my particular CDP as I know which mods have/have not been done. However, when I audition a piece at a dealer or a show or at a friend's house I don't have such detailed info.
It's a toughfy for me as I find it hard to be conclusive: "this is excessive jitter!"