We keep reading and using words like 'jitter','timing',"word clock','sampling','over sampling'"noise floor'....Apart from discussing cdp/dac
subjectively,can we also discuss them
technically,to find out what is actually happening inside them?
Any volunteers,for a temporary,
unpaid,(except thanks)
position of Professor Emeritus for Digital Audio Conversion?
From the Stereophile article-"The jitter game"
Stereophile: The Jitter Game
"digital audio data is useful only after it is converted to analog. And here is where the variability occurs.Presenting the correct ones and zeros to the DAC is only half the battle;those ones and zeros must be converted to analog with incredibly precise timing to avoid sonic degradation."
"Sampling is the process of converting a continuous event into a series of discrete events. In an analog-to-digital (A/D) converter, the continuously varying voltage that represents the analog waveform is "looked at" (sampled) at precise time intervals. In the case of the Compact Disc's 44.1kHz sampling rate, the A/D converter samples the analog waveform 44,100 times per second. For each sample, a number is assigned that represents the amplitude of the analog waveform at the sample time. This number, expressed in binary form (one or zero) and typically 16 bits long, is called a "word." The process of converting the analog signal's voltage into a value represented by a binary word is called "quantization,"
"All that is required for perfect conversion (in the time domain) is that the samples be input to the DAC in the same order they were taken, and with the same timing reference. In theory, this sounds easyjust provide a stable 44.1kHz clock to the A/D converter and a stable 44.1kHz clock to the D/A converter. Voil!perfect digital audio."
Also a transport of delight....and degradation
Stereophile: A Transport of Delight: CD Transport Jitter
"the timing of those ones and zeros is of utmost importance. It isn't enough to get the bits right; those bits have to be converted back into music with the same timing reference as when the music was first digitized. It turns out that timing errors in the picosecond (ps) rangethe time it takes light to travel inchescan audibly degrade digitally reproduced music"
"the jitter's spectral content affects certain sonic aspects differently. Jitter can be randomly distributed in frequency (like white noise), or have most of its energy concentrated at specific frequencies. The jitter's characteristics probably determine each transport's sound. Is this the mechanism behind the different sonic signatures of CD transports?"
"different DAC architectures (1-bit and multi-bit) respond differently to different jitter levels and the spectral distribution of that jitter. The identical word-clock jitter could produce different sonic effects, depending on the DAC and the manner in which its word clock has been recovered."
. I just hope you take things in the right spirit, I do not intend to question anyone's seriousness as an audiophile, at all. 
