Jitter vs no-Jitter

[esldude]

People should enjoy music first and take this hobby as fun.
This pool is supposed to help in both directions. This is not an examination of anybody's ability in listening.
In my view voters, whose name remains undisclosed, should enjoy the result regardless if the outcome matches their vote or not.

Don't misunderstand me. I wasn't wishing to out anyone or anything. I know from experience, even with names withheld, most audiophiles will not take part. Even when nothing personal is at stake in a public sense. I can only guess, that in a private sense it is either seen as a risk or as something of no use. In any case, your low rate of participation is to be expected.

 

[Gregadd]

Yes, having seen a few of these, and done a couple, you will find people very shy about doing these type things. Making choices with nothing other than their ears to go on seems a bridge too far for many an audiophile.

Or maybe constantly being asked whether the lipstick makes the pig look better no longer interest us.

 

[Mike Lavigne]

If it were a betting matter you would have a bet. Whether I know more or less than he I can't say. My comments referred to his comments in the video.

and I would double down.

that is Ted Smith, the designer of the PS Audio Directstream dac. Ted designed his own discrete software upgradable dsd dac. he did not use any off the shelf chip set. he also has a great ear and having listened with him many, many, times, if he says he can pick up on low amounts of jitter sonically then he can. he is very humble and unpretentious. was involved in digital audio workstation design in the 80's and 90's. brilliant guy. better person. I'd listen closely to his views.....although he would say it's only his humble opinion......and someone might know better than him.

 

[bibo01]

Don't misunderstand me. I wasn't wishing to out anyone or anything. I know from experience, even with names withheld, most audiophiles will not take part. Even when nothing personal is at stake in a public sense. I can only guess, that in a private sense it is either seen as a risk or as something of no use. In any case, your low rate of participation is to be expected.

I am not expecting more than 20 voters.
That's why the pool in on 3 different forums: WTB, CA and NextHardware. From this point view, it's actually interesting to see different participation and attitudes, but most of all different results.

 

[Orb]

Unfortunately there is not one definable audible effect one can associate with jitter because there are different kinds of jitter; this is compounded that most studies and chatter focus on "white noise" random type jitter, which is mostly meaningless to influence on sound.
I would say most notable effect might be a slight loss of focus/image (for a couple of scenarios that used to be more common) similar to what you can get relating to more known-accepted phase related issues.

Cheers
Orb

 

[853guy]

In the pool options are:
1) track "A1"
2) track "A2"
3) I am not sure to hear differences.

I'd say track A2 is the DAC with the lesser amount of jitter, so I vote:

2) track "A2".

What do I win?

 

[Gregadd]

Unfortunately there is not one definable audible effect one can associate with jitter because there are different kinds of jitter; this is compounded that most studies and chatter focus on "white noise" random type jitter, which is mostly meaningless to influence on sound.
I would say most notable effect might be a slight loss of focus/image (for a couple of scenarios that used to be more common) similar to what you can get relating to more known-accepted phase related issues.

Cheers
Orb

I would go a little further.What is the point of teaching yourself what a distortion sounds like if you can't cure it at the user end? Now that you know what it sounds like, it's just foing to annoy the heck out of you.

 

[bibo01]

I'd say track A2 is the DAC with the lesser amount of jitter, so I vote:

2) track "A2".

What do I win?

A big kiss from Miss Universe!

Why don't you vote in the pool?!

 

[FrantzM]

I would go a little further.What is the point of teaching yourself what a distortion sounds like if you can't cure it at the user end? Now that you know what it sounds like, it's just foing to annoy the heck out of you.

Ignorance is bliss after all

 

[Jinjuku]

I'll carve out some time and give it a whirl.

110dB down is pretty tough though.

 

[853guy]

A big kiss from Miss Universe!

Why don't you vote in the pool?!

Hey bibo01,

Well, first of all I'm happy to put my vote up for public scrutiny - although I appreciate voting in a poll in a forum using an anonymous moniker isn't particularly vulnerable nor likely to alter my reputation (whatever that might be) one way or another.

Secondly, I'm genuinely interested in the audible effects of jitter, so I'm keen to see whether my thoughts on how our perception of music may be altered when presented with a signal containing higher relative jitter bears out in a real world scenario such as this.

And thirdly - and this is not meant to be a dig in any way - when you say "vote in the pool", do you mean "vote in the poll"? I am a bit confused about how this works, hence deciding to state my vote in my post above.

Nevertheless, I've gone ahead and voted in the poll for A2 having the lesser amount of jitter, though so far there is at least one other person who completely differs in opinion. And on an Internet forum, no less...!

 

[esldude]

Unfortunately there is not one definable audible effect one can associate with jitter because there are different kinds of jitter; this is compounded that most studies and chatter focus on "white noise" random type jitter, which is mostly meaningless to influence on sound.
I would say most notable effect might be a slight loss of focus/image (for a couple of scenarios that used to be more common) similar to what you can get relating to more known-accepted phase related issues.

Cheers
Orb

You are not disagreeing with a designer at PS Audio are you? tisk, tisk!

You are of course correct. The common audiophile dogma around jitter has become like a metaphysical demon. All manner of issues heaped upon it, and all manner of devices promise to reduce it. No need to measure, or show they are effective. Just say you hear it. Yet jitter manifests as noise. Perhaps random, perhaps signal correlated. It is only added noise. It also is more likely some real effects blamed on jitter come from larger effects. Like filtering that lets some aliasing through.

 

[Gregadd]

I think we often lose sight of the fact that audiophiles on the whole are consumers. WEe noticed that something ids wrong wit digital Our first inclination was to ignore it. Easy too ignore the hardware. Not so much wit the software. I recall m first flrtation with digital was prompted by a piece of music I simply had to have. I took the cd player and the cd home the same day.
The point is audiophiles deserve a a pass. We approach the probelm backwards. It's flawed . How do we fix it? We have tried everything. Nothing seesmto have worked in part bbecasue those whose responsibiltiy to make it work have been slow to admit there was even a problem

 

[bibo01]

Hey bibo01,

Well, first of all I'm happy to put my vote up for public scrutiny - although I appreciate voting in a poll in a forum using an anonymous moniker isn't particularly vulnerable nor likely to alter my reputation (whatever that might be) one way or another.

Secondly, I'm genuinely interested in the audible effects of jitter, so I'm keen to see whether my thoughts on how our perception of music may be altered when presented with a signal containing higher relative jitter bears out in a real world scenario such as this.

And thirdly - and this is not meant to be a dig in any way - when you say "vote in the pool", do you mean "vote in the poll"? I am a bit confused about how this works, hence deciding to state my vote in my post above.

Nevertheless, I've gone ahead and voted in the poll for A2 having the lesser amount of jitter, though so far there is at least one other person who completely differs in opinion. And on an Internet forum, no less...!

Sorry for the misunderstanding.
Perhaps it is because it is hot in Bali (Indonesia) where I am and there is a local volcano eruption at the moment covering things in ash that I am mostly thinking of a "pool"

Thanks for voting.

 

[lateboomer]

As said before I have good confidence in my listening and willing to take part in ABX. So I and my brother together think A2 is the one with less jitter. We think A2 has better depth, quieter background and better instrument separation. So we will vote A2. Of course we might be wrong and fall flat on our face.

 

[bibo01]

Thanks for voting

 

[BE718]

Jitter vs no-Jitter

This picture is a Jitter test of DAC no.1. Jitter is so low at this window that practically it cannot be measured.




This picture is a Jitter test of DAC no.2. Jitter is high and over 200ps.



Question -
Listening to two equal tracks - "A1" and "A2" - recorded passing through each DAC, are we able to recognize DAC no.1 with less jitter?

In the pool options are:
1) track "A1"
2) track "A2"
3) I am not sure to hear differences.

This is a link to download the two tracks in question: http://dropcanvas.com/lljtz
The answer is in a ZIP password protected file. The answer will be given in 10 days.

Thanks for participating

Hi bib,

What adc was used to record the DAC outputs?

I should have some time tomorrow to listen

 

[bibo01]

Hi bib,

What adc was used to record the DAC outputs?

I should have some time tomorrow to listen

A specially optimized system with EMU 1212

 

[bibo01]

I declare the poll closed.

Password to open file "Nuovo documento di testo", included with the two tracks used for the poll, with solution is:
jdnfiudyt8o547ty5o8ejthelibgh8gh

At the moment of closure the poll result is:

Track "A1" = 1
Track "A2" = 4
I am not sure to hear differences = 1

 

[BE718]

Hi Bib

Really interesting. I have just looked at the other sites you published the test on (i deliberately didnt prior to casting my vote) and see that out of 27 votes 19 (70%) thought A2 was the no jitter track. Im no statistician and this wasnt the most scientifically rigorous of tests (bit of fun really), but it would seem to suggest that even though they were wrong, people fairly consistently thought they could hear something different between the two tracks. There was something people fairly consistently associated with track 2 as being better.

What did I hear? Well, in track 2 some of the lower Harpsichord registers there seemed a little more warmth at times, and there was an emphasis on some of the high frequencies.

I suppose if you went on this poll you would conclude people can hear the effect of jitter, but whether they can accurately identify it maybe not ! They seem to like it !


Computer Audio

Track "A1" 4 26.67%
Track "A2" 9 60.00%
I am not sure to hear differences 2 13.33%

Next
song "A1" 0 0%
song "A2" 6 100.00%
I'm not sure to hear differences 0 0%