Euphony OS w/Stylus player setup and issues thread

[ASRMichael]

Lukasluis, email Euphony they will send you trial version. Note it's not a finished version, but worth testing and feeding back. I;m in the process the now. 

[Lukasluis]

42 minutes ago, AnotherSpin said:

 

Please refer to @austinpop post above (#439)

Thanks for the pointing it out. I shall open a support ticket.

[Anwar]

Here is my initial impression.  Please note that I am using Stylus and all my music files are attached locally, separate O/S SSD (inside NUC) and music SSD (attached as USB SSD thru iFi Micro iUSB 3.0).

 

I installed the latest unreleased version into external USB SSD drive to boot from so that I can do A/B comparison with the current version.  Unfortunately, maybe due to 11k songs, Euphony crashed a few times.  Response was also slow when changing folders/tracks.  Eventually I installed the unreleased version to NVMe EVO 970 SSD and it is indeed stable.

 

I tested with DSD 256 music files purchased from Blue Coast, very fine recording of piano solo (Steinway 1875) by John R Burr (Quarter-Tones) and Fiona Joy (Story of Ghosts), and also vocal by Meghan Andrews (Just Let Go) which she played piano / guitar as well.  I heard a veil is lifted.  Music flows more naturally now.  I never heard DSD 256 this good.

 

Is this just RAM root change or the rendering engine was also enhanced?  The improvement is very significant.

 

 

[Anwar]

Additional update after playing many music files.  While DSD 256 sounds better, the lower resolution files (both PCM and DSD 64, 128) sound worse with RAM root.  After turning off RAM root and reboot the system, I am getting back what I used to hear from previous version.

 

With RAM root, Euphony occasionally has problems with not displaying album artwork and sometimes not responding to folder/track changes.

[austinpop]

9 hours ago, misterspense said:

 

It was also once stated that the prime reason for using Optane was that the latency was comparable with RAM (and the noise comparable with USB). 

 

First, with regard to your question above. Optane's 3-D X-Point design may be faster than traditional SSD NAND, but it is still nowhere as fast as DRAM. For reference, see this table from Intel:

 

Source: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/04/21/storage_approaches_memory_speed_with_xpoint_and_storageclass_memory/

 

For this workload shown (not specified) Optane access is 35x slower than DRAM. Note that SSD is much slower - "...150 times slower than DRAM for writes and 600 times slower for reads." Obviously the exact numbers will vary with workload and different brands, but the basic point is clear - Optane's latency is still much higher than DRAM, while much lower than NAND SSD.

 

But all that said, this experiment being discussed here isn't related to the speed of Optane. It's to try ramroot mode on Euphony, just like it's been used on AudioLinux for all this while. Plenty of users are using ramroot on AL, while using Optane as their persistent storage. They still hear improved SQ.

 

The question being posed here, and what people testing the prototype are trying to determine with their ears is - is the same true with Euphony OS?

 

My ears tell me - yes.

[austinpop]

For those testing with Stylus, one other experiment to try is to see if caching - via the "Use Cache" flag makes a sonic difference when in ramroot mode.

 

I was unclear about how caching works, so got some more insight from Željko. Here are the salient points:

• the cache is maintained in the /data/Music/E_CACHE directory
  • NOTE: this directory is NOT loaded into RAM in ramroot mode, because it is on a separate disk partition
• on first play of a file, the stream is loaded from the original location, while in the background, the file is copied into the cache
• subsequent plays load from the copy in the cache
• The cache is allowed to grow until the free space in the /data partition falls below a threshold of some N GB. 
• After that any new additions to cache result in evictions using a standard LRU policy.

 

[bodiebill]

My initial impression beta-testing Euphony with ramroot:

 

I currently only use Euphony as endpoint with NAA, feeding it with DSD128 files (ASDM7EC) from an AL machine with HQP embedded (still trial). This in turn is fed by a server PC with Windows attached to my NAS library. I run Euphony from a usb stick (also still trial).

 

Of course it takes some time to start ramroot, which apparently also requires a reboot. In future I could switch to a much faster usb stick.

 

As to sound quality. Normal vs ramroot are very close together in SQ to my ears. Ramroot may be very slightly opener and smoother, but it could be my imagination...

 

I prefer the new HQP EC modulators and with those I can go no higher than 128GB on my machine with i7.

Later I may try DSD512 with a more lenient modulator...

[lmitche]

25 minutes ago, bodiebill said:

My initial impression beta-testing Euphony with ramroot:

 

I currently only use Euphony as endpoint with NAA, feeding it with DSD128 files (ASDM7EC) from an AL machine with HQP embedded (still trial). This in turn is fed by a server PC with Windows attached to my NAS library. I run Euphony from a usb stick (also still trial).

 

Of course it takes some time to start ramroot, which apparently also requires a reboot. In future I could switch to a much faster usb stick.

 

As to sound quality. Normal vs ramroot are very close together in SQ to my ears. Ramroot may be very slightly opener and smoother, but it could be my imagination...

 

I prefer the new HQP EC modulators and with those I can go no higher than 128GB on my machine with i7.

Later I may try DSD512 with a more lenient modulator...

Did you remove the USB stick after ram boot was complete and before playback?

[AnotherSpin]

Installed DEV version with ramroot enabling option yesterday, and listening for many hours since that.

 

My system: mac mini with HQP desktop 4 (PCM only) -> short Supra CAT7 -> Netgear switch -> short Supra CAT7 -> NUC7i7DNBE (powered by Paul Hynes SR5) with Euphony Endpoint with ramroot enabled. 

 

The difference is much bigger than I would expect. I am using AL endoint NAA as well, and enabling ramroot there was giving certain, but not such big positive difference. With Euphony ramroot gives a quality difference. I do not want to use typical superlatives terminology here, but it all is here. 

 

I had certain difficulties in deciding between AL and Euphony endpoint NAA before yesterday. In some parameters and with some recordings AL sounded better, while overall and with many other recordings Euphony was better. For this moment it is over, Euphony+ramroot clearly beats AL (with various settings) with wide margin. In my system and to my ears.

 

 

[bodiebill]

14 minutes ago, lmitche said:

Did you remove the USB stick after ram boot was complete and before playback?

 

No, but I did now, and it seems another micro-step up in SQ. Wonderful.

[bodiebill]

I was considering to put an Optane M.2 drive in the Euphony endpoint PC, but is this a good idea when using ramroot? After all the PC can then run fully diskless when the usb stick is removed...

[Holzohr]

3 hours ago, bodiebill said:

I was considering to put an Optane M.2 drive in the Euphony endpoint PC, but is this a good idea when using ramroot? After all the PC can then run fully diskless when the usb stick is removed...

 

Do you still have your GentooPlayer USB stick? I had abandoned the NUC-as-endpoint-thing when I bought the Matrix Element H card for my server (Euphony) but then because I am still not really convinced of this card I have reactivated my NUC7CJYH (not possible to put an m.2 drive there) one-two weeks ago as NAA (Audiolinux ramroot) and now I use it as NAA with Euphony (trial) root loaded to RAM. 

This dual pc setup seemed to sound better to my ears already with AL and now with Euphony and activated Networkaudio, too.

I guess I will have to buy a NUC7i7DNBE.

 

Before making a final conclusion about using AL or Euphony with the NUC as endpoint I would like to try GentooPlayer again but run out of USB sticks at the moment. From my memory GentooPlayer gave me the most listening pleasure compared to AL or Jussi's NAA image. Maybe because of Alsa 1.0.29?

[bodiebill]

39 minutes ago, Holzohr said:

 

Do you still have your GentooPlayer USB stick? I had abandoned the NUC-as-endpoint-thing when I bought the Matrix Element H card for my server (Euphony) but then because I am still not really convinced of this card I have reactivated my NUC7CJYH (not possible to put an m.2 drive there) one-two weeks ago as NAA (Audiolinux ramroot) and now I use it as NAA with Euphony (trial) root loaded to RAM. 

This dual pc setup seemed to sound better to my ears already with AL and now with Euphony and activated Networkaudio, too.

I guess I will have to buy a NUC7i7DNBE.

 

Before making a final conclusion about using AL or Euphony with the NUC as endpoint I would like to try GentooPlayer again but run out of USB sticks at the moment. From my memory GentooPlayer gave me the most listening pleasure compared to AL or Jussi's NAA image. Maybe because of Alsa 1.0.29?

 

Yes I still have my GentooPlayer stick, now with the latest version which has alsa 1.1.8. This new alsa version sounds really good and I'd see no need anymore to go back to 1.0.29. I very much like the sound of GentooPlayer, but I find the added richness of Euphony really tempting. The question is whether it is worth the cost, but that's why it is good to have some time left on the Euphony trial.

 

Familiarity with the sound signatures is more important than impressions from a quick A/B comparison. What impresses in the short run could irritate in the long run. And what seems boring in the short run could become addictive in the long run. So I take my time.

 

One practical advantage of GentooPlayer is that it loads its ramsystem very fast, without rebooting. Is this not possible in ArchLinux?

 

Still in doubt whether to use an Optane M.2 drive (which is possible in my Supermicro board).

 

And to finish with a confession: I sometimes dread to be influenced by extra-musical things, such as the beautiful yellow color of the Audiolinux screen, the euphonic name 'Euphony', or its smooth visual design. Could these influence my perception of the sound?

 

[Holzohr]

13 minutes ago, bodiebill said:

 

Yes I still have my GentooPlayer stick, now with the latest version which has the alsa 1.1.8. This new alsa version sounds really good and I'd see no need anymore to go back to 1.0.29. I very much like the sound of GentooPlayer, but I find the added richness of Euphony really tempting. The question is whether it is worth the cost, but that's why it is good to have some time left on the Euphony trial.

 

 

I see. I am lazy a bit this summer. I will give GentooPlayer another try in September after my vacation. The good thing about the cost is the Euphony Endpoint License. 

 

 

24 minutes ago, bodiebill said:

Familiarity with the sound signatures is more important than impressions from a quick A/B comparison. What impresses in the short run could irritate in the long run. And what seems boring in the short run could become addictive in the long run. So I take my time.

 

 

Same here. 

 

 

25 minutes ago, bodiebill said:

One practical advantage of GentooPlayer is that it loads its ramsystem very fast, without rebooting. Is this not possible in ArchLinux?

 

That's really a plus point. Audiolinux takes ages to load into RAM. Euphony seems to be faster but no comparison to GentooPlayer or Jussi's NAA image. 

 

 

27 minutes ago, bodiebill said:

Still in doubt whether to use an Optane M.2 drive (which is possible in my Supermicro board).

 

I have two other 32GB Optane sticks here for the server. One is reserved for Audiolinux and one for Windows Server 2019. With my current ASRock board I can swap them quick. With my former Gigabyte H110N the m.2 slot was on the bottom of the board.

I think I will remain using USB sticks for the endpoint. 

 

 

32 minutes ago, bodiebill said:

And to finish with a confession: I sometimes dread to be influenced by extra-musical things, such as the beautiful yellow color of the Audiolinux screen, the euphonic name 'Euphony', or its smooth visual design. Could these influence my perception of the sound?

 

 

Haha, I feel (and so Euphony's design) reminded of Daphile and oops: I already forgot about the yellow color of AL. I was using more the headless version. I like that you can open the Euphony side with whatever you want: tablet, smartphone... I appreciate this kind of comfort. Not sure about the influencing thing.. lol

[AnotherSpin]

2 hours ago, bodiebill said:

[...]

And to finish with a confession: I sometimes dread to be influenced by extra-musical things, such as the beautiful yellow color of the Audiolinux screen, the euphonic name 'Euphony', or its smooth visual design. Could these influence my perception of the sound?

 

 

But, everything is influenced by something. Even a lack of influence is an influence of a kind.

[austinpop]

Here is another update on Euphony OS with ramroot. I am running a standalone server.

 

The more I listen to ramroot with additional musical selections and genres, the more I am noticing how much it improves over the non-ramroot case on my system. The 2 scenarios I mostly run in my system are:

• Roon+StylusEP
• Stylus (no HQPlayer, no upsampling)

In general, while the benefit is quite significant on Roon+StylusEP, I feel the scenario that shows the biggest benefit is Stylus. This has caused the SQ gap between Stylus and Roon+StylusEP to increase further, which is honestly bittersweet for me, since I much prefer the Roon UI. Before the ramroot fix came along, I had gotten into a pattern of doing most of my listening on Roon+StylusEP, even though I knew Stylus sounded somewhat better.

 

Now the difference is just too big to ignore. I still listen to Roon+StylusEP for exploration, discovery, and if I'm "grazing," but for any sustained listening, I take the trouble to switch to Stylus and listen there.

 

I also tried to compare SQ in ramroot with "Use cache" enabled vs. disabled. This only applies to Stylus, as Roon Core does not interact with the cache. Also, when comparing, it's important to check that you are indeed listening to the cached version. The easy way to do that is to click on the album thumbnail on the bottom left of the screen, which opens up a full screen detailed view. One of the fields shows the location of the file. If a file is in cache, it will be in /data/Music/E_CACHE/...

 

At least to my ears, the "Use cache" case sounds better with ramroot, just like it did without ramroot.

 

Another caveat to note: my music files live on a NAS, so loading the original music file occurs over the network. It's possible that if your music lives on a locally attached disk, your findings may be different.

[mozes]

1 hour ago, austinpop said:

I also tried to compare SQ in ramroot with "Use cache" enabled vs. disabled. This only applies to Stylus, as Roon Core does not interact with the cache. Also, when comparing, it's important to check that you are indeed listening to the cached version

Do you know if LMS+StylusEP interact with cache?

[austinpop]

18 minutes ago, mozes said:

Do you know if LMS+StylusEP interact with cache?

 

I doubt it, but don't know for sure.

[Anwar]

I am having problem with Euphony registration (not trial but proper license).  Even though my internet connection is good, Euphony keeps giving warning message about no internet connection, hence registration cannot work.  Anyone else seeing this problem?  I am using Intel NUC7i5BNH with wired LAN connection.  I was trying to reinstall the RAMroot vs official release for comparison.

[AnotherSpin]

5 hours ago, Anwar said:

I am having problem with Euphony registration (not trial but proper license).  Even though my internet connection is good, Euphony keeps giving warning message about no internet connection, hence registration cannot work.  Anyone else seeing this problem?  I am using Intel NUC7i5BNH with wired LAN connection.  I was trying to reinstall the RAMroot vs official release for comparison.

 

To problem with proper license (for endpoint) in my case, works in a second. 

[Lukasluis]

On 8/17/2019 at 6:22 PM, ASRMichael said:

Lukasluis, email Euphony they will send you trial version. Note it's not a finished version, but worth testing and feeding back. I;m in the process the now. 

Thanks I am testing it now. 

[Chopin75]

16 hours ago, Anwar said:

I am having problem with Euphony registration (not trial but proper license).  Even though my internet connection is good, Euphony keeps giving warning message about no internet connection, hence registration cannot work.  Anyone else seeing this problem?  I am using Intel NUC7i5BNH with wired LAN connection.  I was trying to reinstall the RAMroot vs official release for comparison.

Yes i have this issue with the older V2 but V3 trial I have not seen that happening, send Euphony a ticket.

[HeeBroG]

Hi All,

 

I finally managed to get Euphony running on my NUC7PJYH after using AL for some months.

Unfortunately I can only run it in Squeezelite mode as my Uptone LPS 1.2 is not powerful enough to power Stylus with a USB drive attached.

Still sounds good with Macmini running AL LMS as server.

Have 8GB of RAM in the NUC and have setup ram buffers as suggested previously on pg. 9 my Rajiv.

Can someone help me setup CPU isolation for the NUC which has 4 cores.

Thanks in advance

 

Geoff

 

[austinpop]

2 hours ago, HeeBroG said:

Hi All,

 

I finally managed to get Euphony running on my NUC7PJYH after using AL for some months.

Unfortunately I can only run it in Squeezelite mode as my Uptone LPS 1.2 is not powerful enough to power Stylus with a USB drive attached.

Still sounds good with Macmini running AL LMS as server.

Have 8GB of RAM in the NUC and have setup ram buffers as suggested previously on pg. 9 my Rajiv.

 

With LMS on the Mini, you should be able to run StylusEP on the NUC instead of SqueezeLite, and I find StylusEP to sound better. It also presents as a Squeezebox, just like SqueezeLite.

 

I also seem to remember that Željko implemented a distributed mode in Stylus. If so, you can also try running Stylus on Euphony on you Mini, and then StylusEP on your NUC. This would be better sounding than LMS, in my experience.

 

See what works and what you think.

 

2 hours ago, HeeBroG said:

Can someone help me setup CPU isolation for the NUC which has 4 cores.

 

Are you running with hyperthreading enabled or disabled? Either way, without entering any values, first just hit Apply next to the CPU isolation field in Expert Settings. In the resulting screen, cut and paste the output here. Based on that, I can suggest an isolation setting to try.

[Holzohr]

1 hour ago, austinpop said:

 

I also seem to remember that Željko implemented a distributed mode in Stylus. If so, you can also try running Stylus on Euphony on you Mini, and then StylusEP on your NUC. This would be better sounding than LMS, in my experience.

 

 

Hmm..  distributed mode? I have tried this (Stylus on the server and StylusEP on the NUC endpoint) but Stylus doesn't "see" the StylusEP. Stylus must support the Squeezebox protocol for this mode I guess? What does work is Stylus plus HQPlayer on the server and Networkaudio activated on the NUC. And it sounds to my ears better than standalone. I have the cheap NUC7CJYH only with the original ps. What will happen if I buy a NUC7i7DNBE (and a Keces P8)? I wonder.