AES/EBU vs XLR cables for digital connection

Just wanted to update the updates here, as I’ve been living with all this for some weeks now. To remind everybody, I’m using a Sonnet Hermes streamer and a Sonnet Morpheus DAC. The two are connected through i2s via what I think is a good ethernet cable. Streaming service is Qobuz, which I’m accessing through Roon on my Dell XPS laptop. (And yes, designsfx, it does connect wirelessly. Many thanks for your explanations and suggestions). Since last update, nothing has improved soundwise, I’m afraid. I still don’t think I’m getting anything like the quality I should be getting. Things are fine up to a certain point, but in the frequencies where voices live and higher, it’s still shrill and glassy. Also, dense musical textures get pretty muddy. This is not what I should be hearing.

I made a startling discovery about the Qobuz app on my Samsung smart TV, which is that there are only 2 choices of sound quality, MP3 or 44.1. It was actually set to MP3 (!) but since I’m upconverting everything to 24/96 with a Wyred4Sound reclocker, it ends up sounding quite good. I tried changing this setting to 44.1 quality, but then no sound came out. Go figure.

As far as I can tell, the Hermes streamer won’t allow direct access to Qobuz (or any streaming services) without going through Roon or similar platform. If there is a way to do it I’d be very grateful to learn how. The owner’s manual is pretty basic and doesn’t really cover much in the way of detail.

So this is where things are presently. Not a happy camper yet, but I hope to get there eventually. Still open to your thoughts and suggestions.

My iFi Zen Stream can’t directly run Qobuz either. I’m not familiar with your streamer, but I was able to run Qobuz using the mConnect+ app so maybe that could work? Point is, you wanna get that computer out of the signal chain however you can. Even if you have to temporarily bypass Roon to get to hear Qobuz without the computer I’d highly recommend you do so. You’ll be highly rewarded with significantly better sound quality, and maybe you can find a way to employ Roon later if possible (I’m Roon ignorant so I got nuthin’ there). Anyway, hope this helps at least somewhat, and best of luck in your journey.

@cooper52 

I’m sorry to hear that you’re still experiencing problems with your setup- trying to help you get to the bottom of it all-

1) You confirmed that you could get Qobuz to run wireless- did you take the laptop (and Roon) out of the mix when running it wirelessly? Was there any improvement?

2) When using Roon with your laptop are you using Roon’s volume control, headroom leveling or EQ at all?

3) In case I missed this how are you passing audio from your laptop to the dac- usb  or Ethernet?

Well. After some poking around, and following sesignsfx’s most excellent suggestion, I finally discovered Roon’s DSP engine and the ability to adjust EQ with it. What a difference! Roon defaults to what looks like a flat frequency response, but to my ears it seems skewed towards higher frequencies. Boosting the bass a good 3 db and gradually rolling off the higher frequencies from about 2000 Hz  upwards has yielded some unexpectedly spectacular results. NOW what I’m hearing is much more like what I was hoping for. Of course I’ve only heard this through headphones so far, but I’m sure putting this through the speakers will sound as good or better.

One experiment I’ve yet to try is controlling Roon through a tablet or iPhone, neither of which I own yet, but stay tuned--this may change soon. I’ve tried using both my desktop computer and Samsung (Android) phone but neither will recognize the Hermes streamer.

Again, thanks to all (and especially designsfx) for the input and suggestions. I’ll post further progress as it occurs.

And as happens pretty often in this forum, we’ve strayed rather far off the path of my original post, so apologies for that.

And yet one more update: finally was able to get the laptop out of the equation by switching to a Samsung tablet. It was an immensely frustrating process, as Roon can be very tricky to set up properly, and especially difficult to figure out how to move the Roon core from one source to another. I’m now running it on my desktop computer which is far more convenient, as it’s pretty much always on. The tablet, I discovered (after tearing my hair out and swearing loudly for days on end) can’t serve as the Roon core, but does work very efficiently as a wireless controller to access Qobuz and my music library. Now everything’s working exactly as it should, sounding especially good, and making me happy. I have to acknowledge Roon’s customer forum for pointing me in the right direction, as the actual online technical information Roon offers is difficult to navigate and not as clear as it ought to be. But still, I got there finally. And BTW, with reference to my original post, still using the I2S connection. Haven’t yet compared it to AES/EBU, but will try that experiment at some point. The Hermes doesn’t even have a USB connection (!), so can’t make that comparison. One day, perhaps, I’ll see about an even higher-end streamer, but that’s not in the cards quite yet.