So you are saying the digital AES/EBU input is broken? Faulty? Why would ethernet sound better? Should it?
@J.D - When you made these rankings what device did the upsampling/downsampling? Did you just let the 8C process everything or let roon or other devices upsample/downsample to the 8Cs internal sample rate before sending to the 8Cs? Just curious.
Absolutely not. When i had the Aurender N10 connected via AES/EBU the sound was amazing.
But when i compared the AES/EBU with Ethernet (ROON) IN MY EARS , the Ethernet input takes the sound quality up a notch.
Between AES/EBU and Ethernet the difference is small. The difference IN MY EARS lays in the timbre and 3D. And a bit more transperent , open.
Analog XLR sounds a bit more āwarmerā / rolled of in the highs. When it comes to the lower end, analog input sound has less separation IN MY EARS. Overall the sound has less separation.
Dont get me wrong, both analog XLR and AES/EBU sounds AMAZING. The most important thing is to do some room correction.
But in MY opinion, i think the D&D8c sounds the best trough the ethernet input.
How mutch ROON software and my Innuos Streamer had a part in this i dont know. And for now i will never be sure, because there is only one way playing over ethernet, ROON.
The only device that let me do this , was with the Innuos Server and ROON. I switched between 192kHZ and tried downsample in ROON to 48kHZ. To be honest, i dont remember if i could hear any real difference. But there was some times I liked ROON delivering 192kHZ better, but i really didnt have the time to try this. I was exciting ROON worked.
The other devices ive tried with my 8Cs is :
Mola Mola Tambaqui DAC over XLR and AES/EBU
Aurender N10 Streamer over AES/EBU
I didnt use ROON back then , so i could not really play with up/downsampling
@J.D - Thanks! Iāve not been able to try ethernet roon yet, but when I do Iāll do some extensive playing around. Iām currently running mine via AES/EBU via a Lumin U1 Mini and letting roon do the upsampling/downsampling to 48khz and the sound is exceptional. If itās better via ethernet that would be amazing.
Between AES/EBU and Ethernet, the differens is smaller than with XLR and Ethernet.
You could try it already. Switch between analog XLR and AES/EBU. When connecting the Aurender N10 with AES/EBU for the first time , streaming TIDAL The first thing i noticed was the lower ends. They where tighter , and had more information.
I know that the Dutch and Dutch 8C reclocks everuthing again, but the more time i spend comparing different sources , the more I start to believe that they make a difference. Especially between the inputs
Iāve tried both XLR and AES/EBU (with Roon upsampling/downsampling to 48khz). AES/EBU is clearly better IMHO and matches what technically I believe should happen as to do XLR, you need a endpoint that takes digital from roon, converts to analog and sends to the 8Cs which then reconverts to digital to process and converts again to analog to go to the internal speakers. Thatās a lot of processing. If you use roon to upsample/downsample to 48khz and use AES/EBU, your going digital to the native sample rate of the 8Cs and have only one conversion to analog. This should be better technically IMHO and in fact is for me. Of course YMMV. When I do get the ethernet direct from roon going to the 8Cs I will do much more testing of letting roon vs the 8Cs do the sample rate conversion via both the AES/EBU and ethernet direct connections.
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You may also try having Roon send bit perfect music via AES to your speaker for internal re-sampling, especially for 44.1kHz. See which sounds better to you.
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Yes ! So far , going digital is the way to go due to less conversions along the way.
Found this from the Kii 3 topic, by @ogs
"I got some info from Dutch&Dutch today. The AES input on the 8c works up to 96kHz, however as a RAAT device the 8c will accept up to 192kHz and ā all incoming signals are converted to the DSPās working rate ā. The message did not state āā¦the DSPās working rateā.
Also important is that ā Roon takes full control of the volume in the 8cās ā. "
IĀ“ve heard and read this before. The D&D8C resamples everything to 48kHz, this we know today.
But it accepts 192kHz over ethernet, and the little testing i did with ROON when it comes to 48kHz vs 192kHz , I found myself liking the 192kHz better rather than feeding 48kHz to the D&D8C. But for now, without proper testing , I would call it placeboā¦ 
This was the case. I believe that they have updated the AES input to accept 192khz now, or so the manual seems to suggest.
Based on what Iāve read (D&D do not publish this) the incoming digital signal is then reclocked to a lower rate, likely 48k, to go through DSP and DA conversion.
Thanks that did the trick 
Super .
That is correct
Some minor updates.
New Powercables. New powerstrip.
Waiting for new ethernet cables and trying to find a new switch.
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Hi,
Can we know what power and ethernet cables did you buy?
Thank you.
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Hello !
The cables are built for hand, they are a no brand cable.
Powercable: Rhodium contacts with a solid single core cryo treated copper, with 4 layers of shield.
Ethernet cables will be of silver, and same thing here, many layers of shield. CAT 8. Contacts will be EMI shielded.
The powerstrip is from IFI. ifi powerstation. The white plugs are ifi purifiers. The ifi powerstation is shielded in each socket. Together with the cables, no wifi signal can find its way to the cables.
Ill come back with pictures when i get the rest.
Hi,
I am on firmware 1.4.38 and I am trying to stream Roon (free trial) directly to my D&D 8Cs through ethernet cables. At first I connected the speaker from two different ethernet outlets in the wall and I only got sound from the left speaker. Then I purchased a switch and connected the switch to one of the wall outlets and now I only get sound from the right speaker. In Lanspeaker.com I see Roon ready under the group and under each speaker when I start to play Roon. Under the audio settings in Roon my speakers are identified as a Roon ready device. I, however, only see one IP-address under this device. Is that correct?
Any idea of what I am doing wrong here?
They are not yet Roon ready afaik. They have been nearly Roon ready for a long time - some reviewers have tried such versions - but ai donāt think it has been officially released yet. I imagine there are issues synchronizing the speakers.
I now managed to get sound from both speakers simultaneously, but I donāt know exactly what made it work. When I randomly gave only one of the speakers a group name i Lanspeaker, sound came (repeatably) from that speaker, but when attaching the other speaker to the group still only one of them played. Then I turned the speakers of and on a couple of times and repeated attaching and detaching the speakers to the group name and suddenly there was sound from both speakersā¦ As often is the case, unsystematic testing makes things work in the end, but the downside is that you have no idea what made it workā¦
Iām curious how you got 1.4.38 for the 8cs. The firmware page shows 1.4.36 as the latest beta 1.4 release.