Euphony OS w/Stylus player setup and issues thread

[davide256]

17 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

The whole local storage question still remains a matter of compromises. We have disparate data points from folks who have tried different approaches:

• @romaz in his experiments feels conventional NVMe SSDs to be particularly harsh sounding
• Others have had good success with HDDs in an external enclosure, with both USB and the drive separately powered with 5V and 12V PSUs.

The rationale for Optane was based on the fact that you need something to boot the OS, and the Optane SSD (note - we're not talking about using it as a cache, just a small SSD) has the potential to be less harsh because of these metrics - per specs:

• Idle power: 8mW
• Active power: 2.5W

The rationale as the OS drive is based on the fact that the drive is either always idle after boot - say in the case of AL with ramroot, or mostly idle, since over time the OS drive has very low I/O utilization. So power consumption is closer to the idle value, and by implication, harshness is lower. Music drives are different, since their utilization (and hence the %time they are active and in active power mode) is higher.

 

In contrast, the quintessential "noisy" SSD, the Samsung EVO 860 is rated:

• Idle power: 50mW
• Active power: 4.5W

With these bounds, the specs of the H10 are interesting:

• Idle power: 12-13mW
• Active power: 5.3-5.8W

Based on specs alone, I would be inclined to trust the H10 more as an OS drive, and less as a music drive. At which point, the whole point of H10 becomes moot in a music server.

 

Bottom line - I don't see anything with H10 that tempts me to change my own strategy, which is:

• Optane M10 32GB SSD OS drive
• All music on a NAS somewhere else on the network.

With that said, if some curious mind has the means and stamina to conduct a listening comparison with various storage strategies, you'd be doing us all a service. I'm prepared to change if a better sounding solution emerges.

 

 

I continue to prefer fast SDXC cards to HD or SSD...HD playback reminds in the treble range of bookshelf KEF's I owned in the 90's where the treble of the soft dome tweeter

was noticeably damped on transients. Nonetheless the treble for SDXC media can occasionally irritate 😣

 

The discussion about power has me wondering if SDXC card use can be forced into a lower power mode that would be better behaved? The stock power usage

of SDXC storage media appears to be similar to Optane memory

 

From Wikipedia

" The power consumption of SD cards varies by its speed mode, manufacturer and model.

During transfer it may be in the range of 66–330 mW (20–100 mA at a supply voltage of 3.3 V)...
Modern UHS-II cards can consume up to 2.88 W, if the host device supports bus speed mode SDR104 or UHS-II. Minimum power consumption in the case

of a UHS-II host is 720 mW"

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SD_card#SDXC

 

[davide256]

decided to go back and give Euphony a try again since its "improved", supposedly works as an endpoint only. I have it working as the default 1 box Euphony server

but cannot find it as a Roon server or Roon endpoint. Whats odd is that the server IP address does not show when you use IP Address Scanner in any configuration, although you can connect via web http to euphony.local. Any thoughts on how to fix what going awry in network settings?

[davide256]

20 hours ago, davide256 said:

decided to go back and give Euphony a try again since its "improved", supposedly works as an endpoint only. I have it working as the default 1 box Euphony server

but cannot find it as a Roon server or Roon endpoint. Whats odd is that the server IP address does not show when you use IP Address Scanner in any configuration, although you can connect via web http to euphony.local. Any thoughts on how to fix what going awry in network settings?

have partially figured this out. Connecting NUC direct to router allows me to see it as Euphony Roon server, looks like Cisco catalyst switch is stepping on something.

[davide256]

looking for instructions on how to make an  Optane M2 stick into an SSD for Euphony on i3 NUC, can't seem to find that posted. Anyone know where

I might find that?

[davide256]

On 8/16/2019 at 5:10 PM, austinpop said:

For folks who are using Euphony OS, you may be interested in this. Željko now has an experimental build where he has implemented ramroot support, which can be enabled/disabled from the Expert Settings area of the UI.

 

I've been trying it out for a couple of days, and my results so far have been promising. Just like in AL, enabling ramroot (loading the root partition into a RAM disk, and then booting from it) results in a definite uptick in sound quality.

 

Željko wants to get a few more proof points before releasing it, and asked me to convey this call for testers. If you're interested in testing it out, and reporting your results here in this thread, please reach out to him by opening a support ticket in the Euphony system.

 

Tried OS in RAM, wasn't pleased. Vocal harmonics for female "crooners" on soundtracks in "A Beautiful mind" developed harmonic dissonance, overall sound while detailed seemed blunted compared to stock Euphony goodness. Think I'll go the Optane SSD route for boot drive.

[davide256]

On 8/16/2019 at 3:41 PM, Holzohr said:

 

If you want to install the trial on ssd/hdd you find Nenon's method here: https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/55916-euphony-os-wstylus-player-setup-and-issues-thread/page/15/?tab=comments#comment-969660

 

Mine is here: https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/55916-euphony-os-wstylus-player-setup-and-issues-thread/page/3/?tab=comments#comment-941032

not getting me through the critical point...neither post describes how to use a memory stick as an SSD. I have licensed version of Euphony so can easily install via Euphony menu, how  does one convert the Optane memory to an attachable disk for format/write? Or is this as simple as the memory already shows

as a disk device in Optane capable machine? Hesitant to buy without validation of this part.

[davide256]

5 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

Hi David,

 

Optane storage is not a "menory stick" in that it does not plug into a memory slot, nor does the BIOS present it to the OS as RAM.

 

Optane storage (using a technology called 3-D X-Point), while faster than conventional NAND SSD storage, still presents to the OS as an SSD. The HW packaging is in the same M.2 form factor as NVMe SSDs, and so to the OS it just looks like an NVMe SSD, albeit with different speed and latency characteristics.

 

What often confuses matters is that one of the use cases Intel touts for Optane is as a cache accelerator for a slower (but much larger) HDD. This use case requires additional software support (Intel® Rapid Storage Technology), which as far as I know, is only supported on Windows.

 

None of us are using this use case, so for the purposes of this discussion, think of Optane as just an SSD with outstandingly low latency, and very low electrical noise.

Thank you! 

[davide256]

On 8/24/2019 at 9:39 PM, davide256 said:

 

Tried OS in RAM, wasn't pleased. Vocal harmonics for female "crooners" on soundtracks in "A Beautiful mind" developed harmonic dissonance, overall sound while detailed seemed blunted compared to stock Euphony goodness. Think I'll go the Optane SSD route for boot drive.

Please throw this input in the bit bucket. A pair of  12AT7's went bad in the pre amp, suspect they declined/ skewed my listening results over the past few days. Will report back after I've adjusted to their replacements.

[davide256]

6 hours ago, RickyV said:

 

Do you know this site: https://www.tubeworld.com/12at7.htm

Normally shop at Brent Jessee, NOS Tube site in Turkey, occasional eBay purchases. Like the Telefunken 12AT7's but they don't last. Looks like

they do have some they aren't out of sight for price, thanks!

[davide256]

Is there a way to use Euphony Stylus server to feed a separate Stylus endpoint?

[davide256]

I'm back to running Euphony in RAM, maybe a slight improvement in dynamics but  not the improvement difference you get with AL when you switch to RAM.

Did a rerun compare of 1TB HD Seagate media  vs  1TB class 10 SDXC media, SDXC still wins out for clarity, treble/bass sharpness. I have a 32gb optane stick

arriving today, I plan to retest once that arrives.

My hope is that Optane SSD using Euphony cache option will improve  sound and eliminate media type sound quality differences. Not using the cache option

currently because USB stick cache  is slower than either storage media, sounds worse enabled

[davide256]

32 minutes ago, Holzohr said:

 

I had a similar problem with my USB stick after disabling ramroot and rebooting. The reboot didn't work or I was not that patient. I even re-flashed the USB stick with the Euphony-ramroot image but then I remembered that I already had some issues with this USB stick before when it got too hot. And the stick was very hot when I removed it from my NUC. Well, for now I use the stick for the NUC (as endpoint) only to boot Euphony to RAM. Then I remove the stick.

Ditto. I rebooted after disabling RAM as I wanted to do the Optane install in normal mode,  system never finished initializing. Advanced IP Scanner shows  Euphony stuck in an

intermediate state (hostname Euphony11) which I see also with the non RAM version before it completes boot and has http available at hostname Euphony.

[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

[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.

[davide256]

Curious if anyone else is noting this with latest RAM loaded  version of Euphony where all can be loaded in RAM? Using buffer and cache options with RAM load,

I've been able to eliminate an edgy discordant  overtone on CD quality choral passages with external SSD/SDXC media direct attached to server, NAS and direct attached media now sound pretty much the same vs different when run off USB or Optane disk.

[davide256]

55 minutes ago, mantis07 said:

Hi Guys, I've been following this thread and decided to try out Euphony. I downloaded the trial and installed it on a spare PC. It sounded really good so I decided to get a 7i7DNFE and I purchased a Euphony license. So, on my first install attempt for the new NUC I downloaded Euphony trial and the write to USB failed at around 80%.  I tried again on the same stick and it failed again. The installer actually killed my Sandisk  USB stick(now it's read only) so I had to use another stick - same thing - another dead stick. Finally it worked on the 3rd stick. What I didn't realize is that when the Euphony install program failed and I tried again it was actually writing to my internal drives!!! While I was trying to download Euphony I decided to turn on my NAS and 20TB ESata box(attached to Win10 machine used to download Euphony) to copy some music to the NAS. I then realized my 1TB internal got repartitioned with 4 Linux partitions - I guess on the 2nd or 3rd download/write attempt failure the install program grabbed my ESATA storage and killed it. Unfortunately I was using Win10 software RAID0  -drive #3 of a total of four drives got Linux partitioned rendering the array useless. The Euphony install program only showed my Sandisk USB stick during the write - it NEVER showed the other mentioned drives but it sure did a number on them. Fortunately I had the majority of 35000 albums backed up but lost about 5000... and dozens of hours of recovery. Euphony support wasn't much help with this and said it was impossible that it happened using their installer... 

 

So today as my library was slowly restoring I decided to try the NUC wired vs wireless. I had it set to wireless for about a day and it worked great. Today I tried wired and then tried going back to wireless. Well when I went wireless Euphony all of the sudden showed that it was unregistered/over trial and showed someone else's info that lives in China. What??? I was super frustrated at this point. I write to Euphony about the issue and am told I need to choose what I want for my already paid for license - wired or wireless. I was totally unaware I would have to make a choice. Has this come up for anyone else?? Why would I need to chose an unsupported option when I paid $300. Makes no sense to me. Any advice or suggestions?

 

Thanks

Tony

Euphony is licensed by email address and hardware fingerprint. Apparently you purchased your license with wireless disabled ( as I did) and enabling wifi afterwards changed

your hardware fingerprint(new  mobo HW found). You should be able to change your license to the newer fingerprint with both ethernet and wifi enabled. if not thats their

registration defect and we may all need to pitch in on a dissatisfied  owner support ticket campaign...

[davide256]

 

2 hours ago, motberg said:

I think this is great news so far....

If you do not mind, how much RAM are you using in the Euphony PC?

8 gb. Euphony does caution about the size of Roons database but I haven't had issues with a terabyte of mostly CD quality music.

.

[davide256]

3 hours ago, Jeff Mann said:

I have the Euphony PTS unit and when I hover my mouse over the "enable ramroot" button, it states that one will not be able to access one's Euphony drive if ramroot is enabled. Does that mean that I will not be able to access "My Music" where I have my downloaded local music files located?

 

I still do not know what ramroot really is and why it should influence the sound quality of any reproduced music. By the way, my headphone-based audio system is as follows -: Euphony PTS music server => Matrix X-SPDIF convertor => Wyred-4-Sound 2v2se 10th Anniversary DAC => Niimbus US4+ headphone amplifier => HiFiMan Susvara headphones.

 

Jeff.

RAM root  loads the needed OS  and (when enabled) configuration files to RAM so that no disk access is required  for Euphony program to run.  For whatever reason

Euphony states you can't access the My Music directory in RAM root mode.

 

If you enable the buffer option it will move your track completely to RAM before playback; drive activity during playback degrades good audio.

Enabling also the cache option ( located on boot drive) is useful  if you have a very fast boot drive (Optane like solution) or  slow external media.

Data will be buffered faster.

 

Think media disk access= electrical noise pollution of the NUC.

 

I  recommend using an external media drive and USB boot to RAM root with buffer enabled. That should allow cleanest NUC  environment. I have

an Optane SSD as boot drive  but  found  it and the cache option  "nice to haves" vs the "must have" options of RAM root and buffer.

The better your power supply, the better your end result.

 

Note that music db synch can be a little funky with Euphony; as in tell it your drives, then go have a cup of coffee... should have all your media found

if you allow several minutes.
 

 

 

 

[davide256]

51 minutes ago, mikicasellas said:

Hello David,

 

I have RamRoot enabled but can't understand what do you mean buy "activate "Buffer & Cache", i only can find activate RamRoot...what am i missing here ?

 

Thanks !!

These settings are available with Euphony Stylus player, does not apply to Roon player for Euphony.

Under Music Service,  other music options you will find "Buffer before play =100%"

Under Library,  Miscellaneous options you will find "use cache"

[davide256]

 

7 hours ago, austinpop said:

Indeed. To reiterate - only use the "Copy app data to RAM" flag for the specific case where:

1. you're booting off ejectable media like USB stick, AND
2. you're running endpoint services like Roon Bridge, StylusEP, Squeezelite, or NAA.

Using this flag for running Roon Server or Stylus is not something I'd recommend, due to the crippled functionality.

 

Avoid the "Copy app data to RAM" option like the plague if you're booting off an internal drive, like Optane or other SSD. These devices can't be ejected anyway, so the whole point of this option is moot.

Mmm, our experiences are differing again. Can you be specific on your issues with use of loading app data? So far I’ve found it essential for use of direct attached storage and Optane not particularly necessary. Admittedly Stylus has beaten Roon down to where I avoid it

[davide256]

17 minutes ago, flkin said:

 

From what I gather then it makes comparing from USB dongle :

 

Stylus (on ramroot)

RoonServer+StylusEP (on ramroot)

 

rather difficult then. Since for the former you should not use "Copy app data to Ram" while the latter you should? I take it that the switch will require a reboot..

 

I didn't encounter any problems when comparing the two even though I kept the "Copy app data to RAM" function on in both cases.

KB  sounds like FUD mongering to me. I've had no issues over the past few days swapping between Roon/Stylus, swapping NAS/HD/SDXC storage for comparison media testing. The only quirk I've seen is  unpredictable time to refresh media db and one issue where when I added the NAS storage via Roon first, Stylus said the drive was already attached but didn't show it as available to add to library... removing in Roon and rebooting cleared the problem.

 

Does explain why cache wasn't audible to me in use, i.e doesn't work in RAM root. But that just makes it a "department of redundancy department" exercise since "100% buffer" makes it unneeded if you have enough RAM. Guess I'll add that 2nd 8b  RAM stick back in. I did have a non RAM loaded version of Euphony "brick"

in the past with only 8gb of RAM, my suspicion is that happens when buffer is enabled and playlist exceeds RAM availability, have been careful since about my playlist

size.

 

 

[davide256]

On 9/16/2019 at 8:02 AM, TheAttorney said:

Yes this will work, but it's simpler and faster to keep ramroot always enabled and just hit the "Save root fs to disc" after an upgrade or after any config changes. This will ensure that RAM and disc are always in sync.

 

This statement is rather misleading depending on the context. My take is that....

 

Enabling Ramroot copies all the root filestore to RAM, such that no disc access occurs in the running of the Operating System, resulting in improved SQ due to (it's suggested) reduced latency and noise. With just Ramroot enabled, you still get full access to your music library and music files.

 

If you check the "Copy app data to RAM" option just above the Ramroot Enable button, you will additionally copy /data to RAM. This completely stops all disc access, which further reduces latency and noise. And now you can remove your external drive which possibly may yet further reduce noise.

 

However, that additional option is a moot point for me because usability takes a severe nosedive in exchange for a dubiously small improvement in SQ - at least when caching to Optane and 100% buffer enabled. So this additional option I feel is more for those who want to test what is ultimatly possible, rather than for those who want to enjoy their music collection with minimal fuss. The biggest boost to SQ is to just get the Operating System loaded into RAM - and for that there is no loss in music library function.

 

so a configuration verification here;

 

do you use NAS storage solution  or are you using directly attached storage media?

 

based on your outcomes, I'm suspecting NAS.

[davide256]

7 hours ago, TheAttorney said:

 

No, I'm using a directly connected USB stick (thumb drive).

I don't see any fundemental difference, wrt ramroot usability, between NAS vs direct connected filestore.

 

NAS/USB stick/HD I find too slow/mushy on transients,  but many others prefer over the leanness/brightness of external SSD/class 10 SDXC media.

I'm finding that the fully RAM loaded Stylus player with buffer enabled has mostly corrected these issues for  my SDXC media use where the earlier RAM

loaded beta version without "boot drive independence" did not.

 

 

[davide256]

/data/Music is the default for Euphony on the boot drive. So yes you could store your music there for RAMroot access

 

Roon creates a new installation ID the first time it runs... if the confusion is authorization required when you switch from USB boot image to internal SSD boot image

I haven't found a way to get around that, the authorization ID's are different..

 

When using network attached storage be sure to define it as an attached drive via the Euphony interface first