Shootout at the Linux Corral: AudioLinux vs Euphony

[mozes]

1 hour ago, RickyV said:

 

I think it is also possible to run AL roon/ LMS on the server. Wouldn't make much difference I think. That what I planned to do.

This is more sensible.

[bobfa]

10 hours ago, HeeBroG said:

Hi Bob,

 

I take it the best sound so far requires 2 Euphony licences; one for server and the other for endpoint running Stylus EP?

 

Geoff

 

6 hours ago, tapatrick said:

Thanks for all your great work on this @bobfa  are you running 

Server: Euphony/Roon/

Endpoint: Euphony/StylusEp

Means we would need 2 licences to get your best SQ?

 

I am using two licenses one of the server and one on the endpoint.

[austinpop]

16 minutes ago, bobfa said:

 

I am using two licenses one of the server and one on the endpoint.

 

Euphony were supposed to roll out a lower cost endpoint pricing, for those wanting to run distributed. Is that not yet available in this new build?

[bobfa]

9 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

Euphony were supposed to roll out a lower cost endpoint pricing, for those wanting to run distributed. Is that not yet available in this new build?

I purchased a while back and have never looked to see if they have new pricing structure.  

[mozes]

Euphony Endpoint license is Euro 124 

[austinpop]

Yes, I should have checked the purchase page. 

 

BTW - in my system, my previously reported finding still holds: I find Stylus standalone is even better sounding than Roon+StylusEP. And Željko has fixed a lot of Stylus issues that make it quite usable.

 

While I'm not ready (yet) to ditch Roon, I find it relatively painless to do my browsing on Roon+StylusEP, and then settle in for listening on Stylus.

[Nenon]

14 minutes ago, austinpop said:

Yes, I should have checked the purchase page. 

 

BTW - in my system, my previously reported finding still holds: I find Stylus standalone is even better sounding than Roon+StylusEP. And Željko has fixed a lot of Stylus issues that make it quite usable.

 

While I'm not ready (yet) to ditch Roon, I find it relatively painless to do my browsing on Roon+StylusEP, and then settle in for listening on Stylus.

 

Same here. Some of the bugs I found in Stylus were fixed with the new release. I get better sound quality than Roon and haven't used Roon in a while. Stylus works fine for me playing local files. Searching music from Tidal / Qobuz with Stylus is still a bit challenging, and this is when I miss Roon's interface. 

 

[bobfa]

6 minutes ago, austinpop said:

Yes, I should have checked the purchase page. 

 

BTW - in my system, my previously reported finding still holds: I find Stylus standalone is even better sounding than Roon+StylusEP. And Željko has fixed a lot of Stylus issues that make it quite usable.

 

While I'm not ready (yet) to ditch Roon, I find it relatively painless to do my browsing on Roon+StylusEP, and then settle in for listening on Stylus.

I am going to get some other folks in to listen to what I am hearing.  There is nothing like a second pair of ears, some conversations and time to help settle this out.  

 

This weekend I plan to put my external drive on the endpoint and run stylus for a while to see what that does for me.  I found that it seemed slow talking with the NAS.I need to understand how the software works.  

 

I am also going to switch from Ethernet to WiFi and see what that does. Then back to try again on compare two box to one box.  

 

It is so much fun to see this stuff bloom!  Spring in Audiophile Land!

 

 

 

 

[mozes]

46 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

 

BTW - in my system, my previously reported finding still holds: I find Stylus standalone is even better sounding than Roon+StylusEP. And Željko has fixed a lot of Stylus issues that make it quite usable.

 

You may find that LMS+StylusEP is on par with Stylus standalone

[Dev]

Though I haven't critically compared Stylus to StylusEP with the new release but from earlier recollection Stylus indeed sounds very good. The only reason I keep going back to Roon is just because of their UI/Library management and I think many like us are spoiled by it. Some of the features that I use extensively are queue management, library backups, sorting functions - most played, recently added, etc. If Sylus could make headway into these features, that would be awesome and would make the transition super easy for me. The Stylus web interface is not that bad, well, not certainly at par with Roon but definitely very usable.

 

However for folks who interested in using Roon + StylusEP, there are still few quirks that you need to be aware of - apart for Roon limiting the sampling rate to 192K/dsd64 and DoP only, sometimes you will find Roon doesn't move to the next track in the queue. The current track is stuck indefinitely at the end with couple of seconds remaining. All you need to do is to hit next in Roon to play the next track. Its not a deal breaker though. As per Željko this seems also a Roon bug and as usual Roon is 

adamant into fixing any of it or even officially support Squeezlite implementation.

 

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 !

 

 

[sergiocurvelo]

Is it possible to use HQ Player in the  Euphony "trial version"? I can not configure.

[romaz]

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.

[Holzohr]

15 hours ago, sergiocurvelo said:

Is it possible to use HQ Player in the  Euphony "trial version"? I can not configure.

 

To add your HQPlayer license you must purchase the Euphony license before. With the Euphony trial you only can use HQPlayer in its trial mode. Please note that you have no access to the web interface of HQPlayer embedded. Besides there are still some issues to set the noise shaper of your choice for PCM resampling and you only have the choice of DSD or PCM as Upsampling mode. Auto is missing. Željko wants to fix this in the next release. As workaround to set the noise shaper and the Auto mode I use the Android app HQPDcontrol. This works until the next boot of Euphony or restart of HQPlayer.

[bobfa]

Between tilling and planting today, I started my Euphony Stylus NUC vs. Xeon one box listening today.  I am more than pleasantly surprised by the initial results.  The Xeon passes the Adele 21 test.  You can listen to the whole album!  

 

Željko Vranić and his team have something magical here, but we knew that!  I am not comfortable with Stylus Player operations as of yet, but my brain is settling in.   I may have to RTFM!

 

I will get more listening time tomorrow since it looks like rain most of the day.  

 

Bob

 

 

 

 

 

[bobfa]

23 hours ago, tapatrick said:

Yes please!

 

Here is my summary of findings in my systems listening to Audiolinux, Roon, and Euphony Stylus.

 

1. Euphony OS  running on both server and endpoint improve sound quality for me.
2. The Euphony StylusEP sounds better in a dual computer Digital Music Source system.  It overshadows Roon and Squeezelite bridges.
3. Changing to a single box system running Euphony Stylus sounds better than Roon in any combination.  Note I did not play with large buffers in Squeezelite.
4. Testing between my NUC and my Xeon machines the Xeon sounds better.  Same power supply same cables, same music sources, same output.  Euphony Stylus win! Dynamics, detail, digital harshness, depth, and placement are all improved.  

 All of these changes are incremental improvements. I am looking back at a couple of months of testing, and I feel that the I missed out by not listening to the folks at Euphony and giving Stylus player a fair trial.  I had blinders on to my physical system design of two boxes.

 

For TODAY for ME!  Euphony Stylus single box won the shootout. 

 

 

Here is the hardware summary
NUC:  https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/55681-from-0-to-xeonalroon-server-in-2-days

Server: https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/55383-from-0-to-nucalram-in-2-hours

 

 

--

On the Kii Three Speakers, I have the following configuration around the Digital Music Source.

 Networking is fiber from the main house network switch.  
The computer and FMC are powered by the HDPLEX 400
In the USB audio chain, an UpTone Audio LPS-1.2 powers the IsoRegen.

---
I transferred the NUC endpoint to my desktop system for headphone listening. The NUC is now running Euphony Stylus.  Powering the NUC is an UpTone Audio JS-2.  The Schiit LYR3 with their multi-bit DAC follows.

---

 

Reading what others have built and experience it appears that I have several areas of potential hardware improvements.  At this time, the only thing I am considering is changing the stock power cabling between the HDPLEX 400 and the Xeon motherboard.   There will be research into USB such as the JCAT USB card or a tXUSB  Ultra.   I will also be examining how HQplayer works in my system.  I am still comparing music on a local drive vs. the NAS.  

 

In closing this note out.  I am still learning Stylus player.  I have printed the manual to read.  

 

Bob

 

[Balázs]

On 5/24/2019 at 9:43 PM, romaz said:

...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. 

 

I get equally good SQ in my dual box configuration with Roon. Now first of all equally good SQ is not the same SQ. In my system Roon gives a drier but the same time a bit more precise and a lot more natural presentation than standalone Stylus. 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. In my system the following design principles must have been considered (besides the well known regarding CPU, Ram, etc.):

 

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
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)
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 and two PCI slots driven by the CPU plus multiple M.2 slots for Optane drives . 
5. The signal path between Core and Endpoint must be taken care of (REF10, audiograde switch and LAN cables etc.)
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.
7. The client connection type must be Roon Bridge. No StylusEP, no Squeezlite.

 

Having built a dual box server according to these principles I managed to top the single box Stylus in MY!!! system. No guarantee it would work in yours.

[tapatrick]

4 hours ago, bobfa said:

Here is my summary of findings in my systems listening to Audiolinux, Roon, and Euphony Stylus.

 

1. Euphony OS  running on both server and endpoint improve sound quality for me.
2. The Euphony StylusEP sounds better in a dual computer Digital Music Source system.  It overshadows Roon and Squeezelite bridges.
3. Changing to a single box system running Euphony Stylus sounds better than Roon in any combination.  Note I did not play with large buffers in Squeezelite.
4. Testing between my NUC and my Xeon machines the Xeon sounds better.  Same power supply same cables, same music sources, same output.  Euphony Stylus win! Dynamics, detail, digital harshness, depth, and placement are all improved.  

 All of these changes are incremental improvements. I am looking back at a couple of months of testing, and I feel that the I missed out by not listening to the folks at Euphony and giving Stylus player a fair trial.  I had blinders on to my physical system design of two boxes.

 

For TODAY for ME!  Euphony Stylus single box won the shootout. 

 

 

Here is the hardware summary
NUC:  https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/55681-from-0-to-xeonalroon-server-in-2-days

Server: https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/55383-from-0-to-nucalram-in-2-hours

 

 

--

On the Kii Three Speakers, I have the following configuration around the Digital Music Source.

 Networking is fiber from the main house network switch.  
The computer and FMC are powered by the HDPLEX 400
In the USB audio chain, an UpTone Audio LPS-1.2 powers the IsoRegen.

---
I transferred the NUC endpoint to my desktop system for headphone listening. The NUC is now running Euphony Stylus.  Powering the NUC is an UpTone Audio JS-2.  The Schiit LYR3 with their multi-bit DAC follows.

---

 

Reading what others have built and experience it appears that I have several areas of potential hardware improvements.  At this time, the only thing I am considering is changing the stock power cabling between the HDPLEX 400 and the Xeon motherboard.   There will be research into USB such as the JCAT USB card or a tXUSB  Ultra.   I will also be examining how HQplayer works in my system.  I am still comparing music on a local drive vs. the NAS.  

 

In closing this note out.  I am still learning Stylus player.  I have printed the manual to read.  

 

Bob

 

Thanks Bob!

I just did a quick and dirty test of the trial version of Euphony/stylus only on my NUC7PJYH  server (instead of current AL NUC server and NUC endpoint which still sounds awesome to me each day) And I'm not impressed yet. I know I have just done a quick listen, running off a usb stick but it sounds very harsh and soundstage collapsed. More testing needed...

[bobfa]

2 hours ago, tapatrick said:

Thanks Bob!

I just did a quick and dirty test of the trial version of Euphony/stylus only on my NUC7PJYH  server (instead of current AL NUC server and NUC endpoint which still sounds awesome to me each day) And I'm not impressed yet. I know I have just done a quick listen, running off a usb stick but it sounds very harsh and soundstage collapsed. More testing needed...

Boot your endpoint with the USB stick and use it as a single unit running Euphony Stylus.  

[luisma]

Thank you @bobfa  for sharing this thread and all of you for posting, I have been away from AS for a while trying to figure out changes on my system with new speakers so I won't be able to compare for a while. After reading the 9 pages I installed a Stylus server on one of my NUCs and been playing the included library tracks connected directly to my Denafrips DAC.

I am getting an error which I will send to the developer in log format.

Reading your opinions how good Stylus sound compared to Roon (which I don't doubt) it reminds me former threads on AS about these comparisons, to quote a few which I'm sure you will remember

• HQPlayer playing directly to the DAC from the HQP interface many have found to sound better than Roon
• Roon playing from external DLNA, there was this DLNA vs RAAT debate in which many noticed DLNA was better
• J River at some point was discussed it sounded better than Roon
• Many others stated Windows Server with Optimizer software was better than any Linux

Of course we are all entitled to our opinions, you guys @bobfa, @austinpop @romaz and others have tried to summarize for us the results with  a very professional and detailed approach.

 

All systems are different and may experience different results (like someone mentioned a couple pages back) 

 

I will be testing Euphony's software and though I love Roon because of the interface, convenience, special integration with streaming services etc. I can only hope Roon's developers will realize that maybe their sound rendering engine or processing engine could use an improvement.

 

My only issue with Euphony's software is price which in my opinion for the few glitches I have seen and read about is making me think about it and I'm pretty sure some of you reading this thread too.  Right now when playing their Hans Zimmer True Romance track I cannot pause it or check the CPU etc. it is unresponsive, running on a core i3 NUC which is not too powerful but within the specs and just doing native content play nothing fancy

 

If they could make it more attractive for us early adopters, yes they might be on release 3 but really with the glitches I personally (you may differ of course) think it doesn't perform as a solid stable product, then I would personally will consider it.

 

From the Global perspective I believe it is great some new players are coming into the field, it was too Roonish already

 

Last but not least, have anyone tried any testing with HQPe? I read some HQPe options are missing and the interface cannot be accessed directly?

 

 

 

[vassils]

On 5/25/2019 at 3:49 PM, romaz said:

I have recently been educated that modern motherboards that have M.2 NVMe slots that aren't necessarily "Optane ready" (i.e. AMD boards) can still utilize an Optane card as a storage (or OS) drive but not as a cache drive, which is what Optane was originally designed for.  This means that if your motherboard has an M.2 drive capable of NVMe, you are probably capable of using an Optane drive.  It should be easy enough to try it.

 

Confirming this works. 

I tried one of these - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XSXX3NS/ - on a server that does not support Optane. Euphony recognized the Optane card and I was able to move the installation over. Euphony is up and running from this card. 

Thanks @romaz

[bobfa]

1 hour ago, luisma said:

From the Global perspective I believe it is great some new players are coming into the field, it was too Roonish already 

I hope the testing works out for you.  I am very happy with where i am right now.  I just finished a first config of my Headphone system with my NUC.  So I have two systems running.   I have to read the manual on the Stylus software...  I actually printed it!

 

I found that you have check the Stylus settings for Volume control.  It seems to default to software and my systems do not do that.  The volume ends up low or something and you do not know why.  I was a bit weirded out by the low volume on my LYR3 just this evening.    Maybe I should do a video tutorial. 

 

I know that the folks at Wolf Audio Systems are using Jriver and are moving to Linux.  There are a lot of changes in the Digital Source world.

 

If you have a problem with Euphony get them a ticket.  They fix stuff.  I put in one bug report and three feature requests just now.  

 

 

[vassils]

9 minutes ago, bobfa said:

I found that you have check the Stylus settings for Volume control.  It seems to default to software and my systems do not do that.  The volume ends up low or something and you do not know why.

 

And it sounds horrible if you use the software volume control, not just too quiet. 

[lateboomer]

1 hour ago, vassils said:

 

Confirming this works. 

I tried one of these - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XSXX3NS/ - on a server that does not support Optane. Euphony recognized the Optane card and I was able to move the installation over. Euphony is up and running from this card. 

Thanks @romaz

Not sure I should post it here but I hope there is an enhancement at Euphony to be able to assign cache and the size to Optane or Ram for read in data either from USB or Ethernet.  Also likewise an output cache to USB output (not sure it is necessary to do so). This like what Austinpop has pointed out. Thank you Bobfa for looking into this for ours benefit. Then may be audiophile net card or USB card won't play big role in sound quality and we can just use Startech pcie cards with good PS. 

[tapatrick]

5 hours ago, bobfa said:

Boot your endpoint with the USB stick and use it as a single unit running Euphony Stylus.  

Thanks Bob. Yes that's what I have tried - Euphony with Stylus, but not getting any of the magic reported recently. I know there is more to it, with different hardware recommended etc. but thought I'd give it a try and mention this for anyone else wondering about using on their low powered NUC7s.

 

I also wanted to see what life without Roon might be like and just using Tidal which surprisingly I think I could live without if SQ was superior.

[bobfa]

6 hours ago, tapatrick said:

Thanks Bob. Yes that's what I have tried - Euphony with Stylus, but not getting any of the magic reported recently. I know there is more to it, with different hardware recommended etc. but thought I'd give it a try and mention this for anyone else wondering about using on their low powered NUC7s.

 

I also wanted to see what life without Roon might be like and just using Tidal which surprisingly I think I could live without if SQ was superior.

Make sure the the volume control setting in stylus is set to hardware.  

And if it does not sound like you want then we have another data point.