{"id":7249,"date":"2022-09-22T11:27:04","date_gmt":"2022-09-22T15:27:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nordost.com\/blog\/?p=7249"},"modified":"2022-09-22T11:27:50","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T15:27:50","slug":"jitter-a-hifi-villains-origin-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nordost.com\/blog\/jitter-a-hifi-villains-origin-story\/","title":{"rendered":"Jitter: A HiFi Villain\u2019s Origin Story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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When speaking to a hifi enthusiast about digital audio, \u201cjitter\u201d is a four-letter word. If jitter was an audio villain, its evil powers would be inducing noise to unsuspecting recordings, obliterating the depth of field, and smearing the details out of pure, musical integrity\u2026 really dastardly stuff.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just where does this jitter come from? When is it introduced into the signal? Is jitter an unstoppable force that we are doomed to live with, or is there a hero that can protect our fair hifi systems from this audio villain? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First, we have to ask \u2013 what is<\/em> jitter?  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jitter is the\ndeviation from true periodicity of a presumably\nperiodic signal i.e., an error in clock\ntiming. While the definition for all jitter remains the same, the origin of\njitter is not, and this <\/em>is what makes all the difference.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two types of jitter and where they are introduced: <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1)   \nRecording Jitter  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recording jitter is when the timing errors themselves are embedded\nin a recording. This occurs if timing errors are captured in the original data\nsamples. If the data sample that is stored includes jitter, then in becomes an\nintrinsic characteristic of the data itself. Unfortunately, if a data sample is\nproduced with recording jitter it cannot be eliminated during playback,\nregardless of the quality of the equipment used.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

2)   \nPlayback Jitter  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Playback jitter occurs as data streams from the digital transport to the D\/A converter. As timing information converts to frequency information, the musical signal can experience a frequency modulation, known as phase noise. The audible consequences of this phase noise depends on whether the jitter is correlated to the audio signal or not.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jitter correlated to the audio signal  \u2014<\/p>\n\n\n\n