I am often asked what jitter sounds like.
Hmmmm.
On the surface, it's a pretty reasonable question. After all, we can say that large amounts of distortion like IM sound harsh and brittle, while similar amounts of second harmonics sound warm and wooly.
But jitter?
Jitter is the timing irregularity or deviation in the clock signal that synchronizes digital audio data, causing degradation in sound quality by affecting the accuracy of the audio signal's playback over a short enough period of time as to be audible.* We "hear" this degradation as a loss of focus: shortened soundstage depth, a confusion between multiple instruments and voices, a jumbling of what could be clear and concise.
But a sound to it?
I am not sure there's an actual sound to it we could point to and say, "Aha! Jitter. Gottcha!"
No, we hear its impact on the music and are happiest when it is lowest, but a sound?
*Long-term deviations in the clock timing don't matter if they are below the threshold of human recognition. This means anything below the clock varying slower than 20 times per second won't be heard.
