Popular Post romaz Posted May 24, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted May 24, 2019 3 hours ago, Dev said: All these even makes a stronger case for Stylus to improve upon the UI aspect while still keeping the audio quality at the highest bar. Nothing like it if Željko can pull this over ! I never thought I would leave Roon having paid for a lifetime membership a number of years back. It remains second to none with respect to library management and overall user experience but I have found the Stylus player to sound TOO GOOD to ignore and so I have made the switch. Roon by itself has a very good bloom and liquidity to it but it is at the expense of control resulting in considerable overhang and smearing of details, at least to my ears. For vocals, Roon sounds more than just acceptably good but for orchestral music, it really is a mess. Roon + SqueezeLite provides more of this control and much needed precision resulting in better damping and cleaner transients. It's easier to hear when notes start and stop giving you the perception that the noise floor is lower but it also has a tendency to sound dry and mechanical. While tolerable with orchestral music, with vocals and solo instruments, there is a sterility and thinness to SL (even with large buffers) that has always left me wanting. The brain tells me all is well but the heart tells me differently. Stylus is exceptional in it's ability to provide the bloom, liquidity, and tonal richness of Roon but also the the timing precision of SL. In fact, to my ears, Stylus actually does all of these qualities better. When I was doing my tests on AudioLinux, I found that ramping up CPU frequency resulted in better dynamics and an overall more muscular sound. On an i7-8700K, this meant CPU frequencies as high as 4.7GHz and while this improved dynamics was very pleasing, it also came at the expense of harshness and an inability to convey delicacy and nuance. As I set CPU frequency to the other end of the spectrum to a fixed 800MHz (and even 400MHz), delicacy and nuance was there in spades with no apparent harshness but the sound signature was thin and anemic sounding in comparison, similar to what I hear with an sMS-200ultra or ultraRendu. Somehow, with the right CPU, Euphony is capable of providing both the benefits of high and low CPU frequency where it can do dynamics and expansive sound stage but also subtlety and nuance while never sounding harsh. In hindsight, probably one of the worst features ever developed for AudioLinux is the Extreme2 mode because it forced you to a single frequency. I think it's best to allow the CPU the flexibility to scale to whatever frequency is called for by the track. While there is more to Stylus' magic than that, it is Stylus' ability to be both muscular and delicate that has forced me to rethink my digital front end once again. While in Munich, I had a discussion with Jord Groen of Pink Faun about his decision to go with an AMD 1800X CPU. It was his opinion based on listening tests that with his version of AL, CPU frequency was nowhere as important as the number of cores and so he never felt it necessary to move to a more powerful CPU with higher CPU frequency capability. My experience is that CPU frequency definitely adds something but ultimately, harshness was the biggest trade off and so I presume this is what Jord meant. With AudioLinux, I was forced to cap an 8700K at 3.8GHz because any speeds beyond this sounded harsh and so this supports Jord's comment. But with Euphony and Stylus, I let the 8700K run with no cap whatsoever and notice that CPU frequency will typically reach 4.4-4.5GHz consistently, however, I get no harshness at all. In fact, the higher the frequency a CPU is capable of, the better, and so I imagine the ultimate CPU at this time would be something like an i9-9900K that provides 8-cores and a max frequency of 5GHz and a TDP of only 95w. I hope to be able to test this soon but what I will say is that with Euphony + Stylus on a single box 8700K machine, my reclocked i7 NUC driven by a 19V SR7 sounds absolutely puny. Even with the 8700K server powered by an HDPlex 400W ATX LPSU and with no special clocking outside of my tX-USBultra, I prefer the big server to the i7 NUC but as I have figured out a way to independently power both the 8700K CPU and ATX motherboard (using a DC-ATX converter) with SR7 rails, the i7 NUC has now been officially retired. Do I think that a powerful single box server running Euphony + Stylus is better than a dual box machine running Roon + StylusEP? At this time, yes, no question. Stylus is that good. StylusEP contains a subset of Stylus but they aren't the same. To my ears, Stylus sounds smoother and richer and better textured. It is also ultra stable and Željko has done a wonderful job enhancing its feature set. In fact, expect further enhancements in the coming days. mikicasellas, Nenon, rickca and 9 others 4 2 6 Link to comment
Popular Post romaz Posted May 28, 2019 Popular Post Share Posted May 28, 2019 On 5/26/2019 at 3:26 PM, Balázs said: I get equally good SQ in my dual box configuration with Roon. It sounds like you have tuned your setup perfectly to your liking and so that's what's important. As for my post, it had nothing to do with a single-box configuration being better than a dual-box configuration, it had to do with my preference for Stylus over Roon and it just so happens that Stylus only works in a single-box configuration. On 5/26/2019 at 3:26 PM, Balázs said: On the other hand to achieve the better-than-single-box-Stylus with Roon is a rather expensive way to go and might be interesting only for those who would like to keep their Roon environment. I completely agree with this statement. I now belong in the camp that believes that the best dual-box configuration is 2 identical boxes meaning that the server and endpoint use the same powerful hardware and both boxes are equivalently powered to a very high standard. Unfortunately, this means 2X the cost. At Munich, Pink Faun was demonstrating a dual 2.16X setup at a cost of $32k and this setup was not doing any upsampling at all (Jord prefers no upsampling with his DAC). There is definitely an elegance and economy with a single box setup that I am very pleased with. On 5/26/2019 at 3:26 PM, Balázs said: 1. Forget about the standard NUC as an Endpoint. Although it provides very good dynamics and soundstage, it 's not able to control the bass neither to give the same level of detail like a PC with dedicated interfaces. I agree with you as I have moved on from a NUC as an endpoint for the reasons I already stated. Also, it appears you are hearing the strengths and weaknesses of a NUC exactly the opposite from how I am hearing them. My i7 NUC had 4 clocks replaced and was being powered very well by a 19V rail from my SR7 and so this NUC presented much better detail than a powerful PC with dedicated interfaces unless that PC was also being powered by an SR7. Also, this NUC exerted excellent control of not just the bass but also the midrange and treble manifesting as tremendous agility and again, this has everything to do with a low impedance power supply. Where the NUC lacked was in dynamics and soundstage and this is what a powerful CPU that is independently powered gives you. If you cannot properly power a big PC, I cannot guarantee that it will sound better than a NUC. On 5/26/2019 at 3:26 PM, Balázs said: 2. The Roon Core must have an audio grade network card (mine has a JCAT Femto NET) 3. The Roon Endpoint must have both an audio grade network and an USB card (mine has JCAT Femto NET & USB) Once again, I agree. I think both server and endpoint in a dual-box setup should be identical. Even identical CPUs. When I was running a dual box setup, my server was using a JCAT Femto NET card and this JCAT card was being powered by an SR7 rail. My endpoint had all 4 clocks (including the LAN and system clocks) replaced by a REF10 and was connected to my DAC with a tX-USBultra which was also connected to the REF10. Both the endpoint and tX-USBultra were being powered by SR7 rails. In between the server and endpoint were 2 SOtM sNH-10G switches in a serial configuration and I can confirm that the 2nd switch had almost the same impact as the 1st switch. Furthermore, both switches were being powered by SR7 rails and both switches were connected to the REF10. And so my preference for a single-box Stylus setup over a dual-box Roon setup had nothing to do with inadequate hardware. On 5/26/2019 at 3:26 PM, Balázs said: 4. The more power phases the motherboards has the better the SQ might get. I utilize the Asrock Z390 Extreme4 which provides 12 power phases. I am inclined to agree with you and the key word is "might." I compared 2 Asrock boards side by side and the board with the better VRM sounded better to me. Whether this is specifically because of the VRM or some other variable is not entirely clear but it would make sense that the quality of the VRM "might" impact SQ since the VRM is responsible for the stability of the power that the CPU sees. As to whether more power phases also results in better power stability, this is not always true since the quality of the power phases matter just as the number of power phases. Your Extreme4 board is actually a 10+2 design meaning 10 power phases are dedicated to the CPU while 2 power phases are dedicated to the integrated GPU and so only 10 of your power phases have significance. Your particular board uses SinoPower SM7431EH MOSFETS which are rated at 25A each. The Asrock Z390 Phantom 9 is a gaming ATX board that uses the same 10+2 design but uses the higher-end Texas Instruments NexFETs which are rated at 40A. The motherboard I have decided to focus on for now is the Asrock Z390 Phantom Gaming ITX/ac which is a mini-ITX board and because of its smaller size, it incorporates only a 5+2 design but this is where things get deceiving because this board utilizes higher quality power phases comprised of the Intersil Smart Power ISL99227 which many consider to be among the best and are rated at 60A each, more than 2X the current capacity of those used in your board. Regardless, each of these boards should be able to easily handle something like an i9-9900K that isn't being overclocked. This illustrates the advantage of boards designed for gaming as they generally use better parts, especially with regards to power delivery. Another example, your board is only a 4-layer design while my board uses 8-layers which in theory, provides better isolation. Also, my board, even though it is smaller than your board uses a total of 8oz of copper in the traces resulting in better conductivity. If someone is building a server from scratch, it would be worthwhile to investigate the gaming boards. They don't cost that much more. Ultimately, I chose the board that I did because of its size. I would have loved to have gone with a full sized ATX board with multiple PCIe 3.0x16 slots, however, it has been challenging to find a fanless chassis that can house a full sized ATX board that can accommodate multiple PCIe cards without having to use riser cables (ie HDPlex, Streacom). The problem with riser cables is they are generally of poor quality as they use cheap, thin gauge conductors and so I would prefer to be able to plug cards directly into the PCIe slot but perhaps my paranoia here is unjustified. If you know of a good full ATX fanless chassis that can accommodate at least 2 PCIe cards without having to use riser cables, I would like to know. On 5/26/2019 at 3:26 PM, Balázs said: 5. The signal path between Core and Endpoint must be taken care of (REF10, audiograde switch and LAN cables etc.) As I already stated, in my signal path between server and endpoint, I was using dual sNH-10G switches that were being clocked by a REF10 and cabling throughout consisted of either SOtM's dCBL-CAT7 or Ghent's double-shielded CAT6A along with with a SOtM iSO-CAT6 LAN isolator (essentially, an isolation transformer) and so I feel my signal path was pretty well taken care of. I even introduced optical cabling between the 2 switches but ultimately preferred the SQ of copper cabling better. What is surprising is that all of this stuff is just as important with a single-box setup even though Stylus buffers files fully into RAM before playback. People will view this comment skeptically but I am convinced no one fully understands how a network impacts SQ. It's definitely not just about RF noise in the line or leakage current. On 5/26/2019 at 3:26 PM, Balázs said: 6. Both(!) the Core and the Endpoint have to be Euphony Roon servers. Yes, even on a bridge the Roon server software sounds better. Therefore two full Euphony licences are needed, unfortunately. I actually own 2 full Euphony licenses since the less expensive Endpoint license wasn't available when I bought mine. Also, I was not successful in running RoonBridge on the endpoint and so I used RoonServer on both machines just like you are. While I cannot claim that 2 instances of RoonServer sounds better than RoonServer + RoonBridge, I know I prefer the SQ of Stylus. Having said that, as I own Roon, I continue to use Roon for library management because there is nothing better and then flip to Stylus for playback. Fortunately, it's not hard to do. On 5/26/2019 at 3:26 PM, Balázs said: 7. The client connection type must be Roon Bridge. No StylusEP, no Squeezlite. I presume you mean RoonServer since you already stated you don't like RoonBridge. Personally, I find StylusEP sounds better than either SL or RoonBridge but fortunately, Euphony offers you the choice of either one and it's fairly easy to switch. In the end, my preference for Stylus has more to do with the balance of qualities it offers than any one property and it's obvious that what works for me may not work for someone else. bibo01, flkin, jaynyc and 7 others 3 3 4 Link to comment
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