All That Jitters……..


Computer high end audio. Before you embark , let me inform you that it is not as easy as it seems. If you do not do it right, even on the most budgeted of systems, computer audio is not going to sound as good as a redbook CD does.

Take my foray into computer audio at your favorite high end audio say-lon. Desperate for sales, they were pushing the PS Audio digital link. They were all excited about its new price point because they finally got a product for the rest of us. Now, I am not here to bash PS audio, who unlike some “other” high manufacturers, will actually survive this down turn. I am here to give you a caveat on high end computer audio.

I listened to some Magico speakers and a VTL amp. The dealer was trying to impress me with the price point. “How does it sound?” he said. “Well, it sounds like someone is blowing their nose in the background”, I said. “Get out!”, he said.

The sound was 2 dimensional, lifeless and bland. At about 1000Hz – 20Hz, there was a dull suck out as if the system had a cold. Mysteriously, I could here some good detail, but as if I had a cold. What I heard was a thick veil, a thud, a murk, a mud. Hence, I could not help but curb my salesperson’s enthusiasm.

As I said before, this is not a bash on PS Audio, I want to make that clear. What I heard, loud and clear, was the sound of jitter. Even the PS Audio’s Herculean efforts at re-clocking, could not help the sound quality.

It no wonder. There are many kinds of jitter. In computer audio, the physical aspects of jitter, (E&M waves, power line disruptions etc.) play a big role. This guy put two Theil speakers together and had the laptop sitting on the speaker coffee table he just made. The magnets loved it. Even more troubling was a florescent light display in back of the Theils, spraying the entire assembly with magnetic waves that make grasshoppers 10 feet tall on the Sc fi Channel.

Where you place you PC in your digital audio set up is a big deal. The computer monitor, external and internal hard drives, all affect the sound. Until we sort this out, USB audio is good in a pinch, but we still have a lot to learn.

DACs that have drivers that allow asynchronous I/O, like the Musiland LILO DACs,the Ayre and the Wavac go a long way in helping. In theses DACs, the DAC controls the streaming and not the PC. Hence, that is why they replace the drivers on the PC. But, alas, the LILO only has windows drivers.

So go ahead, download, rip and tear. But I would be careful, don’t throw away those redbooks, not just yet.