I don't know how many WBF'ers read Widescreen Review magazine, but Amir has been writing a regular column about various audio topics. This month's (March 2013) article about jitter is the best yet. He explains the different types of jitter and their causes, and shows lots of graph to supplement the text. Hopefully Amir will put this article on his own web site after a suitable period, and link to it from here so everyone can see it.
As some of you may know, Amir and I had an extended discussion about jitter a while back, with me arguing that while jitter is real I don't think it's actually an audible problem. Son of a gun, Amir came to the same conclusion in this article, and he even explained why it's not necessarily audible (masking of nearby frequencies). However, I agree that audio designers need to aim higher than "borderline acceptable" for several reasons. For example, audio typically passes through many devices in a row, so if each is just barely transparent the sum of artifacts can be audible.
Anyway, I just wanted to compliment Amir for his good work, and I learned several things myself.
--Ethan
As some of you may know, Amir and I had an extended discussion about jitter a while back, with me arguing that while jitter is real I don't think it's actually an audible problem. Son of a gun, Amir came to the same conclusion in this article, and he even explained why it's not necessarily audible (masking of nearby frequencies). However, I agree that audio designers need to aim higher than "borderline acceptable" for several reasons. For example, audio typically passes through many devices in a row, so if each is just barely transparent the sum of artifacts can be audible.
Anyway, I just wanted to compliment Amir for his good work, and I learned several things myself.
--Ethan