In article , Nudge wrote:
I wonder how jitter would sound like...

Jitter causes sidebands to appear on the side of each tone. This makes things
sound "fuzzy" and "less clear" for the most part. You can think of what jitter
does as a more subtle version of tape flutter.

Actually, I had my new mic preamp connected
to my computer (w/ S/PDIF) and there was some
noise, but only when recording an distorted
guitar (using a SM57). And I'm not sure if
this could be "jitter sound" or something
like distortion by overdriving the SM57 in
the pre (I had to turn the gain down low
since it was a very hot signal).

Jitter has nothing to do with any of this. Jitter does not cause noise.
It causes a sort of distortion, but one where the distortion products are
very close in frequency to the original tone. It is a fairly subtle thing
in comparison with what you are experiencing.

You should like you're clipping the preamp. Put a pad on the preamp
input and stop worrying so much.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."