What is Jitter?

Jitter affects digital music and lowers the quality of your music, but what exactly is Jitter and how can we reduce it?

[michaelgriffin]

Hell, i want to hear an example of jitter, but everyone is only talking about it.

[zuryan]

you shaould have given an example of real jitter instead of only talking about it.

[notimput]

This is incorrectly explained: Hard drives and networks are asynchronous, yes, and data arrives in mathematically unpredictable times, i.e. not at a strict metronomic pace. But, this is why we use BUFFERS and send data at faster-than-real-time-speeds to fill these buffers and keep them filled ("Audio waits for no one!")

Jitter occurs at ADC and DAC level, e.g. when those digits need to be converted to/from a buffer in RAM or similar memory to an analog audio signal. I'm sure DACs, request this information ahead of time to be ready when the clock tells it to change its output amplitude. Should this clock not be timed exactly like a metronome, then, yes, you get distortions, i.e. jitter noise!

But, to say that these distortions arise from the network lagging is disingenuous from Cambridge Audio. Audio is sent in words, chunks or packages from hard drives and/or over networks. If a chunk or package arrives too late, you don't have jitter, you have a gap in the audio and an audible CLICK occurs. This is far from what jitter is. The ADC and DAC alone cause jitter – which is your domain, Cambridge Audio! After sampling a signal into a stream of bits, the timing of these bits is irrelevant until they get reconverted into a signal using a DAC. Until then, only the sampling rate is necessary as a type of meta-information (and the confidence, that the ADC previously did a good job).

Either you're doing a bad job at explaining it, or you – erroneously – actually think that asynchronous network traffic causes jitter... or Cambridge Audio is being dishonest and deflecting away from some quality flaw (although my experience with Cambridge Audio's products so far would have my head scratching as to why, because their products have given me good impressions up until now...)

[ronnie]

what exactly is Jitter and how can we reduce it?" No answer given.... BUMMER!

[seagoat]

Pure digital=Neil Peart playing YYZ.
Jitter=Someone NOT Neil Peart playing YYZ.

[elmhurst]

The only way to properly get rid of jitter is to not drink 24 hrs before handling any digital device.

[JB_inks]

Nonsense. Are you saying that a 100mbit network isn't fast enough to stream music, ignoring buffers etc?

[humanity]

Jitter can exist in many fields where we need to reproduce our digital signal, I want to ask you how could we avoid these phenomena ?

[ekspression]

You have no sample audio or video to show how jitter looks like or how it sounds like. Visual and audio samples are better than your and talk and talks.

[dibanez_]

which DAC performs better?: <12 picoseconds peak to peak OR <130 pS

[heyguyslolGAMING]

Jitter is a term used by the audiophile community to troll new audiophiles into believing that it can and will distort your audio. It's soul purpose is to trick new users into doing countless hours of research like a dog chasing his tail but only to be left more confused and second guessing their audio hardware rather than just being content and enjoying their music. Like I said its just a troll.

[richc]

WTF does Jason Statham know about Jitter?

[stefanhansen]

I've been trying to understand jitter, before buying a streaming product. I understand that a computer will likely deliver a poor clock, so why would a DAC unit rely on the source from another device? If I stream e.g. TIDAL from my computer to a device with a build-in hard drive, and if I would accept a delay of some seconds from pressing play on TIDAL to the music begins to play, then the whole song could to transferred to an internal storage in the DAC unit, before playback. This way the information feed to the DAC would not be affected by the clock from the source, since the source simple copied the track (as a digital file) to the DAC unit. This is just a though, and I might be wrong. Your thoughts would be much appreciated. Thanks!

[FutureLineRoy]

Ha Ha Ha "Network transport are not timed transport." You clearly dont understand network transport protocol. There are no micro timing shifts... Your funny. Your so wrong on to many levels. Jitter is made up to sell stuff

[khalil]

crap was playing some Identity V, Thanks.

[FOEChico]

Here's the good example of how you should not trust any information wandering in the internet, kids. Pointless vid, I want my 1'47'' of my life back.

[ebarbie]

Jitter that causes a problem in digital signal transfer only occurs in digital communication system, in which the clock frequencies are oner 1MHz high. No human can hear the negligible effect of audio jitter! (except for delusional audiofools).

[SPUDS]

How UK's population pronounces little: L E T H A L

[NunYahbisnas]

Fuck I wanted a stack exchange thread instead I got this if your audio is jittering you'll know cause it sounds like the videos stuttering to stop that shit just restart you browser, application or device, or just wait worked for me.

[adriancressy]

Another waste of time to watch this...Demonstrate what it sounds like and really how to fix Not just mention Cambridge Audio