Thanks very much for the kind offer but I just pulled the trigger on a Mola Mola Tambaqui. Time to hear what Mr Putzeys has to offer.
Cheers,
Alan
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A very good choice. Enjoy!
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Update: I found a one year old Hermes for sale and bought it. It will take a little time for me to run my little, I2S into Directstream experiment. I will keep you all posted as I get into it. I won’t be looking for any kind of large change in my sound (I wouldn’t want it to change much, anyway). I just want to find out if it adds that final touch of realism. Otherwise I’ll sell the Hermes and go back to my Jays CDT2 MK3 going straight into my Directstream via I2S.
Just as a note: I bought the Hermes from an audiophile here in Milwaukee and he will show me how to set it up to output I2S into my Directstream. He had a Directstream hooked up a while ago, but now has a Terminator +.
He’s moving to a downtown apartment and is downsizing. He seems like a pretty straight shooter, so if anybody is looking for a Terminator +, let me know and I’ll get you in touch. Otherwise it will probably show up, for sale on U S Audio, in a few days.
Toolbox149
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Hi @toolbox149
Great stuff.
Looking forward to hearing how you get on.
Fingers crossed it’s a improvement for you.
Cheers,
Alan
I received my Hermes few days ago.
I’m currently pulling together the extra cords I need to do a proper evaluation. In the meantime, I have made a small equipment change and I’m using this time to become very familiar with my new (improved) sound quality. I want to have a very good idea of my current sound so I can evaluate any changes the Hermes might provide.
I’m thinking I should be able to start working the Hermes into my setup sometime after the 1st of August. With my additional cords I should be able to toggle back & forth from my current, direct I2S connection from my Jays Transport to my Directstream DAC-1 - vs - Jays to Hermes via an AES/EBU cable and then from the Hermes to my Directstream DAC-1 via I2S.
I’m in really good place right now, because I’m extremely pleased with my current sound. If the Hermes doesn’t add a positive SQ change I will be very happy to sell it and stop the upgrade train. What I am hoping for is a little better clarification of instrument placement and corresponding clarity of the individual parts when the music gets busy. From what I have read In reviews this is what I should expect - if there is any noticeable change.
Keep you posted.
Tim
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Hi Tim,
It’s all gravy if you get any improvement 
Best of luck and look forward to hearing how you get on.
Cheers,
Alan
“That might explain it as my Directstream is older than that.”
Hey Al,
I just re-read your response to my statement above and I want to clarify, I was saying the Gaia has to be manufactured afterOctober 2021, not the Directstream (and I’m still not sure if my statement is correct).
No worries, I realised I’d misunderstood.
I kinda liked my misunderstanding version though as it absolved me of technical incompetence. Alas the excuse didn’t last long 
Looking forward to hearing how you’re getting on with the Hermes.
No, I haven’t faded off into the sunset. I had a few other things sidetrack me. I’m back on the Hermes project again. I’ll be posting more, soon.
Tim
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Funny thing happened on the way to audio nirvana….
When I last wrote, back in July, I had just received my Hermes. I was about to get it into my system and start testing out if a Hermes could improve the sound quality out of my Jay’s CDT2 MK3 CD Transport using I2S, the same way it improves the SQ out of a computer or streaming device via a USB connection.
Unfortunately, just before I could get started, an ol’ gremlin came out of the past and attacked my system. About 2-3 years ago I had problems with graininess showing up in the midrange, especially with vocals, especially with groups of voices. That had been reduced to a mere memory when all of a sudden the graininess and hash came back. So I started taking my entire system apart trying to figure out what was causing the problem, and I have a lot of pieces to take apart.
As I was making headway on clearing up my sound quality problem, my knee decided to give way and it was decided I needed to go in for knee surgery. So prior to the knee surgery instead of working on my stereo system, I worked on all the projects around the house that needed a working pair of knees to get completed before the winter.
The surgery went fairly well. I’m still hobbling around but as least I am able to get around. All my major projects around the house were taken care of prior to the surgery, so I was finally able to slowly make progress on incorporating the Hermes.
The Hermes presented a few problems which took about a week to solve, but I finally did get the Hermes working with the I2S hook up to my DSD DAC.
J Richards in his PS Audio forum thread titled, “Quick review of the new Denafrips Hermes DDC used with the Directstream DAC”, very nicely describes the procedure for programming the Hermes to output an I2S signal that can be read by the PS Audio Directstream DAC. The Hermes owners manual is also very helpful making the programming of the I2S output pretty easy. The problem I ran into is that somehow Hermes was programmed, maybe by accident, to utilize the outboard clock function. Nowhere in the Hermes literature is this discussed.
Thankfully, within a few days a nice fellow named Vincent Ong got back to me from Denafrips, and sent instructions on how to undo the remote clock function. If any of you decide to buy a Hermes and you can’t get thing to play anything at all, you might use the following instructions to see if your Hermes was set up the same way as mine.
Here are the instructions that were sent by Vincent:
————————————————————————————————————————
Could you please check if the clock on the Hermes can be activated? If it’s currently enabled, please deactivate the clock sync on the Hermes.
Hermes Clock Configuration
Press the setup button once to enter configuration mode.
In configuration mode, user may enable/disable the CLOCK-IN feature.
- Press Setup button once (enter config mode)
- Press OPT button twice
- CLOCK light should be on/off as the OPT button is pressed momentarily
· CLOCK light on = Enable clock in
· CLOCK light off = Disable clock in - To confirm the setting, press Setup button once to save and exit config mode
Do also make sure the Hermes AES input is in single AES mode.
Hermes AES configuration
- Press Setup button once (enter config mode)
- Press AES button momentarily to toggle dual/single AES mode
- Press Setup button once again to confirm the setting
- Press AES input selector button
· AES LED solid red = single AES mode
· AES LED flushing red = dual AES mode
Give it a try and let me know if these helps addressing the problem?
Vincent Ong
————————————————————————————————————————
I feel I need to add some clarification here - Point #2 under Hermes AES configuration
Press AES button momentarily to toggle dual/single AES mode If the red light is flashing and you press the AES button to toggle the Dual/Single mode, the red light will still continue flashing. You have to press the setup button in order to find out if the red light stops flashing. If the red light is still flashing you need to go back and press the AES button twice. Then go back and press the setup button,
and see if the flashing has stopped. I had to do that about four times before the flashing stopped, but once I got the AES configured everything was hunky-dory.
Finally, I got the system all back together, my leg is on the mend, and the Hermes is working. For those of you who are not familiar with the Jay’s CDT2 MK3 Transport, one of the biggest increases in quality over the Jay’s CDT2 MK2 is due to the Precision Oven Controlled Crystal Oscillator (OCXO) in the MK3.
So what I’m doing is starting with the Jay’s MK3 OXCO and then reclocking that signal through the OXCO in the Hermes DDC. I wonder if my double clocking results could come a little close to the jrichards review of how the Hermes affected Jeff’s USB signal.
Right now I’m just getting into the evaluation point and probably have a review within a week so. If you have been patient this long I suspect another few more days won’t hurt.
Spoiler alert: this appears to be working.
Talk to you soon.
Tim
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Now that’s an “audiophiles journey” if there ever was one.
I am glad everything is sorted.
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Okay, so now the fun part begins - the actual listening. The Hermes is all set up. I can do a simple A/B comparison by toggling the input on the Directstream between I2S-unput 1 and I2S-input 2.
Just for background info, a quick description of the equipment for the front channels of my system:
My source is strictly Redbook, a Jay’s CDT2 MK3 with an internal OXCO tied by Inakustic I2S to a
A Ditrectstream DAC with full jrichards improvements using I2S input number 1, then to a
A Bryston BP-26 preamp with MPS-1 (Bryston outboard power supply, to
Sony SEQ333ES Equalizer to a
DBX-3BX to a
McIntosh C-20 tube pre-amp to a
Bryson 4BSST2 amp, to a
Magnepan 3.7i speakers mounted on Mye Stands
This is my front channel setup without my rear channel equipment or my subwoofers. I only use the front channels when I test new equipment. My rear channels and the subwoofers are used when I just sit back and enjoy music.
In this Hermes test I ran an AES cable from the Jay’s to the Hermes and then ran from the Hermes to the Directstream using the I2S input number 2. Input number 1 remains the direct Jay’s to Directstream connection. The direct Jay’s to Directstream still uses the Inakustic I2S cable. The Hermes AES and I2S cables were not as good.
To judge the Hermes addition I toggled back and forth between Hermes and non-Hermes, on a sizable number of different songs and albums. Even though jkrichards and I evaluated two very different sound sources, my results were remarkably similar to the results Jeff obtained in his Hermes PS Audio review titled, “Quick review of the new Denafrips Hermes DDC used with the Directstream DAC.” (Located in the DAC section of the PS Audio forums).
Some excerpts from Jeff’s review:
“1) When I first installed the Hermes in my system the music felt faster and more impactful sounding, there was a higher level of detail (not in a clinical way), 2) Transients were tight and the decay of instruments sounded more real. Especially percussion and acoustic instruments. 3) Anything I’ve listened through it sounds more open and wider, there is plenty of air traveling around, especially while listening to live recordings. 4) picking up notes out of thin air wasn’t a challenge anymore. The air felt heavy and dense. 5) The images became clearer and sharper, depth was nicer,”. (Numbering added by me)
Like I said before, I’m in really good place right now, because I’m extremely pleased with my current sound. When I first started testing out the Hermes all I was really interested in was getting a final reduction in mid-range hash/distortion, particularly in vocals - especially in massed vocals. As I listened to the first two songs my attention was diverted to the music becoming more impactful (Jeff’s first item he listed). The Hermes adds a delightful bit of oomph to the total music spectrum. This was evident in all instruments, but especially evident with percussion. (Jeff’s second point).
The next thing I noticed was the improvement of the bass. Not only was the sound of the bass slightly more noticeable with a gorgeous bloom throughout the bass range; but the entire bass range was clearly audible and homogeneous. There were no dropouts or soft spots. From drum kicks below 40Hz up through 320Hz and beyond. Adds a luxurious quality to the overall sound.
As I concentrated on the improved bass my attention naturally moved to notice the improvement in the sound of other individual instruments. (Like Jeff’s third and fifth point). I thought I had excellent location of individual instruments in my sound, but the Hermes brought out even more localization of each instrument. Additionally, each instrument had more space around it and each instrument developed more of an individual 3-D quality than ever before. While the individual instruments were a little clearer and sharper, each instrument developed an individual depth. Instead of sounding like a collection of 2-D instruments placed at different soundstage depths, now each one of the instruments sounded like they were each 2 to 3 feet thick. These instruments, with more air around them, were all individually spaced around the soundstage. I thought I had a pretty realistic sound prior to this test but the Hermes sure added a noticeable amount of realism.
After all that, my attention finally reverted to evaluating any occasional harshness/distortion in the area of vocals. I’m happy to report that while the Hermes didn’t remove all of the occasional harshness/distortion, the Hermes did reduce it to a point that I can easily live with it. That was a big bonus for me.
To this point the insertion of a Hermes between my transport and my DAC is a definite success. I was lucky enough to find a good used Hermes for under $900 so at this point I’m definitely keeping it. If I was given a free trial of the Hermes and would need to pay full price of approximately $1700 to keep it; I might think twice, but probably would pay the extra money and keep the Hermes. Like I’ve said, I don’t need much to improve the sound quality to the level I desire, but the Hermes exceeds that. I can’t think of $1700 that I could add to my amps, or preamp, or transport or DAC that would give me this much bang for the buck, especially added to the level of sound quality that I already have. The closest thing I could use to describe the impact of the Hermes would be the impact experienced by those who did the full jrichards Directstream DAC upgrade. As I remember the impact of the Directstream DAC upgrade, the Hermes is almost that good.
I don’t have any idea just how large of an improvement the Hermes was for Jeff, as opposed to the amount of improvement I received. Jeff was using the Hermes to improve his source, which used a USB connection. I’m going to assume my transport with a high quality OXCO, that could utilize an AES connection to the Hermes, would start off with a slightly higher quality signal to send to the Hermes. In that respect I’ll assume I would have less room for improvement. If this is true and sources with USB connections can improve even more than I experienced, than this would have awesome implications for anyone with a system featuring a source that uses USB and also has a CD Transport or a Streamer. A DDC unit like the Hermes would offer the ability to improve two or more sources. Just hook them all up and select which input you want with the press of a button on the front. The Hermes would convert all the different signals to I2S to send to the Directstream.
I do have a couple more tests I want to try. I want to check out a volume anomaly I’m experiencing to see if the Hermes is adding to it. Secondly, although I stated in the article that I didn’t think I could take the $1700 (the cost of a new Hermes), and achieve equal results by applying the money to improving an amp, preamp, DAC or transport. Well, I just made a purchase I’ve been lusting after. When I have my new Jay’s CDT3 MK3 Transport burned in (about another full week) I’ll be able to test how spending about $3300 to upgrade a transport rates against adding theHermes to the old transport. Also, the CDT3 MK3 has an improved clock that a couple of reviewers have mentioned features jitter, so low, it can’t be measured. I’ll be interested to find out if a Hermes can work its magic on equipment like that.
Tim
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All I can say is “FUN!!!”
This is why we love this hobby.
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Seems you are enjoying the addition of the Hermes, fun indeed!
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In my review of the addition of the Hermes I mentioned I experienced a volume anomaly during the review. Turns out, it was a different piece of equipment that developed a small problem just at the same time I started the listening and evaluation part of the review. This is what makes this hobby so interesting . It was an easy fix and I’ve been enjoying my new, improved sound with the Hermes added ever since.
As I also said the the review, I recently purchased a Jay’s CDT3 MK3. The old CDT2 MK3 is now out of my system and I’m starting to listen to the new CDT3 MK3. I now have the Hermes installed, just like with the older Jay’s, so I’ll soon be able to evaluate if the Hermes can work it’s magic on the top of the line transport too.
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How much better does the new transport sound?
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I’m going to give it a real good listening to, tonight and tomorrow. My preliminary thought is that it seems almost equal to the CDT2 MK3 plus the Hermes in the area of impact and bass. It exceeds the CDT2 MK3 plus Hermes in refinement, timber, ease of presentation, detail with less hash, and overall listening pleasure.
I’ll have more to say by the weekend, but I’m glad I bought it.
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I finally got the Jays CDT3 MK3 set up in my system after burning it in for 300 hours. Meanwhile, I had been playing my Jay’s CD2 MK3 through the added Hermes DDC and enjoying that combo so much I was becoming addicted to the sound. By this time a solo Jay’s CDT2 MK3, without a Hermes, would have sounded lacking to me. With that in the background I finally fired up the Jay’s CDT3 MK3 using a I2S cable straight to my Directstream. The comparison Jay’s CDT2 MK3 still went through the Hermes. So, Jay’s CDT3 MK3 without Hermes vs. Jay’s CDT2 MK3 with Hermes.
From this point on I’ll be referring to the various Jay’s models as:
Jay’s 2/3
Jay’s 2/3 + Hermes
Jay’s 3/3
Jay’s 3/3 + Hermes
This became a very interesting contest. The Hermes definitely adds a lot of weight and impact to the sound of Jay’s transports. So much so that the Jay’s 2/3 + Hermes gave the more expensive Jay’s 3/3 a real run for the money. The Jay’s 2/3 + Hermes gave the costlier unit stiff competition in the areas of bass response, presence, impact, spacing and initial listener involvement. Both units figure very highly in these specific areas, but in the areas listed the Jay’s 2/3 + Hermes is the winner by a slight margin.
Where the Jay’s 3/3 pulls ahead is in the areas of refinement, liquidity, musicality, ease of presentation and the ultimate listening experience. The Jay’s 3/3 just takes you further into the music, and into almost total believability that you are listening to an actual musical performance. One of the main ways it does this is more and more of the details are exposed to the listener but the Jay’s 3/3 brings these details with such ease that harshness throughout the musical spectrum is vastly reduced. It is as though you’ve been imagining viewing the musicians as music plays, but up till now there has always been a slight fog intermixed with the instruments. Now you imagine viewing the musicians and you can see clearly through with no particles or fog intermixed with all the instruments. So hash and harshness are almost totally removed. That gives the Jay’s the ability to produce the most authentic sounding instrumentation I have yet to hear. At this time I’m fairly certain the Jay’s 3/3 will be my endgame unit. Well, at least for quite a few years. 
After this comparison I moved the Hermes in between my Jay’s 3/3 and the direct stream so that I could compare I2S directly to the Directstream versus I2S through the Hermes. Once again, with the Directstream having two I2S inputs I was able to toggle back and forth between Jay’s 3/3 with Hermes and without. I really appreciate that PS Audio designed two I2S inputs in the Drectstream.
I have to say this turned out to be a very interesting comparison, which required a large amount of different album cuts to fully comprehend. The Hermes also changes the sound quality of the Jay’s 3/3, although not as much a change as when it’s working with the less costly Jay’s 2/3. The Jay’s 3/3 is hard to improve on, but the Hermes does add some interesting qualities.
Once again the impact, fullness, the bass and the spatial quality of the instruments themselves is increased by the Hermes. Initially, it didn’t seem to impact the smoothness of the music, the presentation, the spacing, or the timber representation to as large a degree. Truth be told, I spent a very enjoyable first evening, listening to a number of albums exclusively with the Jay’s 3/3 + Hermes. It was subsequent listening sessions and comparisons that brought me to the opinion that while the Hermes is a big help to USB connected sources and to the Jay’s 2/3, it becomes too strong, too much, when hooked up with the more sophisticated Jay’s 3/3.
The Jay’s 3/3 presents such an accurate and pristine delivery of music that in the end I felt it’s better if I don’t mess with it. Yes, the Hermes did at a lot in the bass department and made all the instruments sound more full, but little by little I came to the opinion that the instruments were sounding too full, almost larger-than-life.
The best description I can make of how the Hermes adds to the Jay’s 3/3 would be if you imagine you are in a rehearsal, playing your instrument right next to a string bass, drums, and a grand piano. They sound a little blunt.
Without the Hermes the Jay’s 3/3 presents an amazingly realistic version of all the instruments, as though you’re hearing them in all their acoustic glory. The instruments sound realistic even if the soundstage seems as if it’s 20-30 feet away.
With the Hermes added the Jay’s 3/3 now sounds like each of the instruments were actually mic’d up, and you are now hearing them through a sound system. The natural immediacy, and musical textures come across as slightly reproduced, rather than pure. This becomes very evident when playing smaller combo jazz recordings or classical recordings. With pop and rock it’s not quite as noticeable, but ultimately I thought even my pop and rock CDs sounded better without the Hermes.
The biggest drawback is that the bass sounds a little washed out if you’re not using the Hermes. That can easily be remedied if you have the ability to ever so slightly increase the bass response of your system below 80-90 Hz.
Once I increased my bass response I had no desire to use the Hermes with my Jay’s 3/3. The stage depth was still just as deep while the vocals, both solo and group vocals, were incredibly smooth with no sense of harshness. Without the Hermes I lost a little bit of impact, but not too much. The Jay’s 3/3 is so precise that when musical passages become congested the Jay’s 3/3 easily separates the different elements and the music becomes very detailed, yet liquid and easy.
For instance imagine a vocalist is singing while guitarist is playing chords right along with a grungy sound to his guitar. Lesser transports might not be able to separate the grunge of the guitar from the vocalists voice. You can end up with a vocalist that sounds a little grungy. Not so with the Jay’s 3/3. The Jay’s 3/3 easily separates the two elements and fully presents each in a manner that allows the listener to listen to the vocalist’s pure sound, coupled with a separate but equal grungy guitar sound, and not get the two combined. The result is extremely smooth and yet none of the excitement is lost. I’m going to be spending quite a few hours in the stereo room soon.
For one last comparison, I re-hooked up my Jay’s 2/3 both ways. to revisit my comparison involving that model; adding I2S directly to the Directstream and keeping the Hermes via I2S connection I’m very happy to say my opinion of what the Hermes does for the Jay’s 2/3 definitely remains unchanged. In my system the Hermes displayed every improvement that I have previously experienced.
I guess the question, “To Hermes or not to Hermes”, will depend on your available money and if you have additional sources you can hook through the Hermes. For me, if I had a Jay’s 2/3, and especially if I also had another source input via USB, the addition of a Hermes or Hermes-like unit would be a slam dunk. Just to try to estimate the improvement I would hazard to estimate that on a scale to 100, if the Jay’s 2/3 would be rated at 90, then the Jay’s 2/3 + Hermes would rate a 96 and the Jay’s 3/3 would rate a 98++. Moving to the Jay’s 3/3 depends how close you want to get to 100.
Please remember, this comparison was performed using the Jays transports, a fully modded Directstream, a Bryston Preamp and a Bryston Amp into Magnepan 3.7i speakers. Those of you with huge tower speakers with multiple large woofers, might want to modify my experience to fit your systems.
I seem to remember others on this forum use DDCs. Maybe a few of them could let us know if their experience with the Hermes is similar or different.
A little after-thought. I bought a Pass XP-12 to try in my system. I have long wanted a preamp with a digital volume display. If I experience a moderate to radical change in the way my Bryston-heavy system sounds, I’ll let you know.
Tim
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I know you used the I2S output from the Hermes to the DAC but what type of connection are you using from your transport to the Hermes?
I used the AES connection between the Jay’s and the Hermes. This would keep the USB Hermes input slot open for other digital sources. You can easily toggle between inputs on the Hermes by pushing buttons on the front panel.
So, if you have two sources - easy peasy.
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