Euphony OS w/Stylus player setup and issues thread

[[email protected]]

56 minutes ago, [email protected] said:

 

hello, I also tried pro usb, and I stayed with the renderer module.

[austinpop]

3 hours ago, dctom said:

 

 

Thank you for your response austinpop.

I can run euphony with HQP on my server and send files to my NUC running NAA, HQP picks up the NAS ok. However when I try stylus it wont connect to the NAS, it  shows it as hidden and when I browse network it does not show as available?

 

I don't have roon maybe that is the issue.

 

I have a guess as to what is happening. If you've already mounted a NAS folder through another music app like HQPlayer, it stays mounted when you switch to Stylus. The code to add a "Network folder" in the Library tab seems to not handle a folder that is already mounted by another app. I now remember I ran into this early on, and Željko had to remote in to my system to fix it.

 

One possible solution to fix it yourself is to suppress the mounting of the NAS by HQPlayer, by doing this sequence:

1. Switch to some other server - like Airplay Audio Server
2. Reboot
3. After reboot, you should come back up with Airplay Audio Server running. No NAS folder should be mounted. If you're up for it, you can ssh into the system using credentials audiouser/euphony, and running "df." You shouldn't see any NAS mount in the list. If that sounds too daunting, skip and proceed to step 4.
4. Switch to Stylus
5. Now try adding the NAS via the Library tab.

If that doesn't work, then you should open a support ticket.

[dctom]

Ok, thank you  for that - I will attempt having a go at that procedure!

[Darryl R]

4 hours ago, [email protected] said:

hello, I also tried pro usb, and I stayed with the renderer module.

 

Interesting.  Btw, I saw your posts on WBF about the SOtM switch and I'm having some weirdness with my SFP sockets as well.  A little off-topic for this thread though.

[[email protected]]

13 hours ago, Darryl R said:

 

Interessante. A proposito, ho visto i tuoi post su WBF sullo switch SOtM e sto riscontrando qualche stranezza anche con i miei socket SFP. Un po 'fuori tema per questa discussione però.

Ho il modello base, senza orologio, tra pochi giorni riceverò un nuovo sotm SNH-10G+ sCLK-EX 1  e vedrò se con il modulo sfp inserito si illumina. te lo dico dopo

[davide256]

On 9/1/2019 at 4:50 PM, austinpop said:

 

My music lives on my NAS, ...

 

 

Saw this and decided to revisit streaming from a DS214play to Euphony stylus, was easy to setup since Euphony "saw" Diskstation advertising media folders.

 

Alas still no joy using NAS streaming , still sounds vague on background instruments and compressed for dynamics even with Euphony cache vs  using USB3 attached class 10 SDXC media in my setup, no cache. Did lead me to try directly attaching the  2 SDXC cards vs using the Lexar USB3 media hub, end result even sharper for dynamics/detail with hub removed.

 

Any "special sauce" in your NAS solution that could tilt results the other way?

 

PS now running Euphony in RAM booted from Optane

[austinpop]

44 minutes ago, davide256 said:

Saw this and decided to revisit streaming from a DS214play to Euphony stylus, was easy to setup since Euphony "saw" Diskstation advertising media folders.

 

Alas still no joy using NAS streaming , still sounds vague on background instruments and compressed for dynamics even with Euphony cache vs  using USB3 attached class 10 SDXC media in my setup, no cache. Did lead me to try directly attaching the  2 SDXC cards vs using the Lexar USB3 media hub, end result even sharper for dynamics/detail with hub removed.

 

Any "special sauce" in your NAS solution that could tilt results the other way?

 

PS now running Euphony in RAM booted from Optane

 

Hmm, maybe this is system dependent. Here is my "special sauce," if you can call it that:

 

Tuning Options

• boot disk Optane NVMe SSD
• RAM booted
• "Use Cache" enabled
• "Buffer before play=100%" enabled
• My Expert settings - note this is very system and CPU dependent. My CPU is i7-8700T.
  

Other considerations

• Some have found that SQ is degraded if network and I/O activity happens during playback. 

My procedure to get the best SQ with Stylus:

• Clear the queue
• Select all the tracks you want to listen to and add them to the queue. In my case, this is typically an album (I'm old-fashioned - what can I say!)
• Now wait - very important!
  • During this time, there is a burst of network I/O (easily confirmed with ifstat), as the tracks are copied from the NAS to the cache on the "Euphony Drive" - in my case, a very fast Optane NVMe SSD.
  • Once caching is complete, you'll know by clicking on the info (i) button of each track in the queue, and looking at the path. It should begin with /data/Music/E_CACHE
• Now hit play
• At this point, there is an intense burst of disk I/O at each track boundary, as the track is read into a memory buffer. Because the Optane drive is so fast, most tracks are buffered within a second or two. After that, I can look at iostat and see there is no disk I/O during playback. And ifstat shows no network I/O.
• This is the optimal SQ mode.

 

NOTE: Playback from Tidal and Qobuz does not get cached or 100% buffered, so their behavior is different.

[austinpop]

3 hours ago, austinpop said:

NOTE: Playback from Tidal and Qobuz does not get cached or 100% buffered, so their behavior is different.

 

Interestingly, buffering still comes into play with Tidal/Qobuz with Stylus. I just looked at the network behavior. Unlike local playback, where 100% buffering means the entire track is read into RAM before playback begins, the mechanism is different with streaming sources.

• The track is still buffered - i.e. entire track read into RAM at download speed
• It's just that playback starts in parallel, rather than serially as with local sources.

It would be interesting to do 100% buffering before playback for streaming sources, at least as an option for those of us with fast internet speeds.

[rickca]

30 minutes ago, austinpop said:

It would be interesting to do 100% buffering before playback for streaming sources, at least as an option for those of us with fast internet speeds.

Definitely!

[stinart]

Hello.

 

My current digital setup consists of : 

a mac mini 2012(not anymore) as roon core and general web browsing , running windows server 2019 installled on an old intel 64gb slc ssd.

sotm sms 200 ultra as roon endpoint  powered by sotm sps 500 

brooklyn dac+

 

Yesterday i bought a nuc8i5BEK2 in order to replace my "aching" mac mini as it cannot cut it anymore. Total absence of intel hd 4000 hardware acceleration makes poor dual core hit 80% usage even on 1080p youtube material. No question about 2k or 4k videos... Also dsd upsampling while browsing is totally a no go on this unit !

 

Anyway ,  since  i had  both  mac and nuc available , i decided to make an interesting comparison :

 i compared intel nuc /euphony(trial) with sotm 200 ultra both powered simultaneously by  sps500 - 12volt setting (monster psu!!) using ghent's Y split cable. That way the only change i had to make was just unplugging dac usb cable from one unit to other and setting up roon again.  15-20 seconds each change.  I loaded  euphony TRIAL boot  on an  sd card  (sotm uses a same brand/type sdcard too) 

 

The result : 

 First i compared euphony as roon core and then as endpoint (core on mac mini).  Core running on nuc was better by  some margin. (not big)

Then i put 200 ultra to the game... ok ... nuc/euphony is good , but cannot touch  sotm sms 200 ultra on my setup at least. Sotms timing and presentation is just another league clearly . Makes you wonder how good it'd  be if could run as a roon core natively...

 

I wiil be clear : I did not make this post to bash nuc/ euphony as  i have NOT any experience with nuc stuff. I am just stating my subjective results . Maybe booting form sd card or powering only  12volt is not ideal??  

 

Anyway i did not buy this nuc to replace my sotm , but my mac. So no problem by me i guess..!!  

 

 

 

[davide256]

On 9/4/2019 at 1:44 PM, austinpop said:

 

Hmm, maybe this is system dependent. Here is my "special sauce," if you can call it that: ......

 

 

mmm, was trying to figure out if my preference for local SDXC media vs remote NAS media was because of under-powered NAS, believe the DS214play

uses Celeron/1GB RAM. Off to another "science" experiment, will try re-purposing a NUC 7PJYH (Pentium/8GB RAM) as NAS to see if that make NAS

more acceptable as source.

 

FWIW with direct attached class 10 SDXC media, buffer= better, Optane memory SSD cache = worse

[davide256]

16 hours ago, stinart said:

Hello.

 

My current digital setup consists of : 

a mac mini 2012(not anymore) as roon core and general web browsing , running windows server 2019 installled on an old intel 64gb slc ssd.

sotm sms 200 ultra as roon endpoint  powered by sotm sps 500 

brooklyn dac+

 

Yesterday i bought a nuc8i5BEK2 in order to replace my "aching" mac mini as it cannot cut it anymore. Total absence of intel hd 4000 hardware acceleration makes poor dual core hit 80% usage even on 1080p youtube material. No question about 2k or 4k videos... Also dsd upsampling while browsing is totally a no go on this unit !

 

Anyway ,  since  i had  both  mac and nuc available , i decided to make an interesting comparison :

 i compared intel nuc /euphony(trial) with sotm 200 ultra both powered simultaneously by  sps500 - 12volt setting (monster psu!!) using ghent's Y split cable. That way the only change i had to make was just unplugging dac usb cable from one unit to other and setting up roon again.  15-20 seconds each change.  I loaded  euphony TRIAL boot  on an  sd card  (sotm uses a same brand/type sdcard too) 

 

The result : 

 First i compared euphony as roon core and then as endpoint (core on mac mini).  Core running on nuc was better by  some margin. (not big)

Then i put 200 ultra to the game... ok ... nuc/euphony is good , but cannot touch  sotm sms 200 ultra on my setup at least. Sotms timing and presentation is just another league clearly . Makes you wonder how good it'd  be if could run as a roon core natively...

 

I wiil be clear : I did not make this post to bash nuc/ euphony as  i have NOT any experience with nuc stuff. I am just stating my subjective results . Maybe booting form sd card or powering only  12volt is not ideal??  

 

Anyway i did not buy this nuc to replace my sotm , but my mac. So no problem by me i guess..!!  

 

 

 

Having owned and sold an SPS500, I'm just going to advise you that the split cable is a bad idea unless both pieces of connected gear are analog amplifiers...

too much noise injected when 2 pieces of digital gear are powered, the winner will always be whichever piece has better noise rejection for the DC power input.

[AnotherSpin]

New official version released today. Ramroot enabling, etc.

[jkelly]

Awesome, now there’s even more bottom end using ramroot!

 

[TheAttorney]

17 hours ago, AnotherSpin said:

New official version released today. Ramroot enabling, etc.

 

I gave ramroot a try.... and I like it... a lot 🙂

 

No issues at all with installation and activation, and works well with my Optane still being used to cache the directly connected USB stick filestore.

 

I've been sticking to my simple settings on my NUC7i7DN: 1.0Ghz, HW=off, core isolation, caching and buffering as previously posted. And now with ramroot, I'm even more delighted with the SQ - considering the low stress being put upon my CPU (typical core temp 37C, and Porky's cooling fins don't even rise to "barely lukewarm"). So much sound from so little energy (around 8W from earlier measurements)!

 

The exact CPU speed seems to matter in this configuration: I slightly prefer 1.0Gz to, say, 0.8, 0.9, 1.2 etc, but this could just be imagination because the differences are much more subtle than, say, ramroot.

 

Also, this release improves the upgrade process for those totally reliant on the WIFI function to access Euphony/Stylus - WIFI on previous releases became inactive after the upgrade process. Euphony Support said they'd fix it at next release - and they did 🙂. Great support.

 

 

[RickyV]

Yes ramroot seems to deliver more air around instruments, voices etc. Better defined space. Real nice.

Together with core isolation which was also an uptic I would say ramroot is an uptic+.

The only thing I am not sure about is the cpu frequency, I keep switching but fail to choose winner.

👍👍👍

 

[Anwar]

Per my email with Željko, this 20190910 latest release has dynamic support for DSD native playback.  No need to recompile kernel anymore in order to support DSD Native playback for new DACs.

 

From Željko: Go to Card Info dialog and notice new UI for setting your card DSD format - click set and then power off/on the DAC or just detach and reattach it.

[TheAttorney]

On 9/11/2019 at 9:28 PM, RickyV said:

Yes ramroot seems to deliver more air around instruments, voices etc. Better defined space. Real nice.

 

Only 2 days later, another "new feature" release 20190912 has appeared:

 

I haven't spotted any new features , but SQ seems to have further improved in a particular way. The previous release did indeed have more air, better defined space, greater clarity and focus in Ramroot. But further listening to my brighter recordings showed that it was not shy in showing up the brighter aspects of the recording.

 

This new release seems to have added a more full bodied, natural presentation (what Euphony Stylus was originally praised for), without any apparent loss of that ramroot clarity. My reference point has changed several times in the last few weeks, so I'm no longer sure whether the latest changes are real or imaginary. Maybe I'm just getting used to the new sound? Or maybe something else has changed in the background? But whatever, I'm really, really enjoying this new release.

 

 

[Nenon]

Here is the change log:

20190912
- Critical fix for starting Album playback
- Added custom field: User tags (add comma delimited tags to better organize your library)

Sounds like a bug fix with the Album playback, which I noticed as well. It does not sound like there was anything added to contribute to sound quality.

[Anwar]

2 hours ago, TheAttorney said:

Only 2 days later, another "new feature" release 20190912 has appeared:

 

I haven't spotted any new features , but SQ seems to have further improved in a particular way. The previous release did indeed have more air, better defined space, greater clarity and focus in Ramroot. But further listening to my brighter recordings showed that it was not shy in showing up the brighter aspects of the recording.

 

This new release seems to have added a more full bodied, natural presentation (what Euphony Stylus was originally praised for), without any apparent loss of that ramroot clarity. My reference point has changed several times in the last few weeks, so I'm no longer sure whether the latest changes are real or imaginary. Maybe I'm just getting used to the new sound? Or maybe something else has changed in the background? But whatever, I'm really, really enjoying this new release.

 

 

 

This recent release (20190910 + 20190912 feature update) is very significant.  The improvements are not imaginary.  I use my SACD player (playing music files from USB drive) as the reference for 'correct' rendering.  When the same SACD player is used as DAC with NUC7i5BNH + Euphony Stylus, the sound is close enough with very small difference. 

 

I've heard my friend's SOtM sMS-200ultra in my system.  I also have Zenith Mk2.  Right now my preference is NUC + Euphony, but please note that the NUC is treated with accessories (Zerozone LPS, iFi iSilencers, iFi Micro iUSB3, Elfidelity SATA filter, iFi iPower 5V for SATA SSD storing music files).

[RickyV]

2 hours ago, TheAttorney said:

Only 2 days later, another "new feature" release 20190912 has appeared:

 

I haven't spotted any new features , but SQ seems to have further improved in a particular way. The previous release did indeed have more air, better defined space, greater clarity and focus in Ramroot. But further listening to my brighter recordings showed that it was not shy in showing up the brighter aspects of the recording.

 

This new release seems to have added a more full bodied, natural presentation (what Euphony Stylus was originally praised for), without any apparent loss of that ramroot clarity. My reference point has changed several times in the last few weeks, so I'm no longer sure whether the latest changes are real or imaginary. Maybe I'm just getting used to the new sound? Or maybe something else has changed in the background? But whatever, I'm really, really enjoying this new release.

 

 

 

Oh wow a second new release i’ll try it this evening. 

[Nenon]

To clarify my earlier point - 20190910 is the release that contributes to sound quality enhancements and the one that requires a restart as some libraries have changed; 20190912 is an Album playbug bug fix and user tags added (should not have any changes in sound quality).

20190912
- Critical fix for starting Album playback
- Added custom field: User tags (add comma delimited tags to better organize your library)
20190910
- Dynamic DSD native playback kernel support for DACs not supported by default
- Expert settings - ramroot
- Fixed random queue playback
- Folders with songs from different albums treated as albums. Album name: "Folder: [folder-name]"
- Improved stream params display when playing via HQPlayer
- Added 'work' field for Qobuz song info
- Added sorting by 'date added' for local library
- Added iostat, ifstat display (click on release-number/reg.-status text)
- Fixed auto-family HQPlayer field change
- Better detection of supported rates for internal cards
- Hidden settings sections irrelevant for current music service
- Fixed bug with similar album paths (one path is substring of another)
- Queue songs looked up before playback in cache and in original location

 

[austinpop]

If and only if you're a geek, here's a couple of "Easter Eggs" that are in this latest release of Euphony. Actually they're not Easter Eggs, since they're mentioned in the release notes:

- Added iostat, ifstat display (click on release-number/reg.-status text)

This refers to the visual elements in UI here:

 

Clicking on these brings up a dense and decidedly Linux table for each that refreshes every second or so. Like this:

 

Since I'm the one who requested this, I thought I'd at least give a little overview on how and why to use them.

 

These are basically conveniences to observe the system - something you can also do by ssh'ing to the Euphony OS. This comes in partcularly handy if you're using Stylus, as you can confirm caching and buffering. Assuming you're OCD enough to think that the SQ is best when the system has minimal network and disk I/O, you can use these tables to achieve that.

 

Don't pay too much attention to the exact numbers - you're looking for bursts of activity. Some examples - in my case, music is on a NAS:

• When I enqueue an album using "Add and Replace"
  • I see a burst of network activity (files being read from the NAS) under RX_Data
  • I see write activity on the nvme0n1p1 partition (happens to be /data) under kB_wrtn/s and kB_wrtn
• After caching is complete, both tables will show minimal activity
  • Don't worry about a small amount of network activity as shown above. That's trivial
  • you can also confirm files are in cache by clicking the little info button on the right edge of each track name
• Next - when you hit play, there is an intense burst of disk read activity as each track is buffered - i.e. read into a memory buffer.

If the above sounds like gobbledygook, please ignore. I did say this was for geeky types.

[flkin]

Does anyone know if there is anyway the Euphony OS can be installed into an internal SSD drive (from the USB drive) that already contains music files without deleting the music files?

 

Euphony help indicates you need a new internal drive for the installation which suggests that all data on the drive would be deleted.

[TheAttorney]

One observation with Ramroot:

 

After upgrading from '10 to '12 release, and having shutdown and restarted a couple of times since then, I noticed that I was back to the '10 release. I hadn't bothered to do the "save root fs to disk" before (on assumption that upgrade would sort that out automatically), so this time I did save fs and this time it stayed at '12 after reboot.

 

Maybe it was obvious to everybody that you need to do that save function after every upgrade if using Ramroot, but I thought I'd mention it just in case.