Euphony OS w/Stylus player setup and issues thread

[Holzohr]

59 minutes ago, Poldi said:

Maybe a dumb question, but how do I turn on legacy boot on a NUC7PJYH? I can't find any corresponding entry in its BIOS. (also using search for "legacy")

And the option to turn on/off UEFI boot is greyed out.

 

@bobfa I think you got a NUC7i7DN board, right? Is it possible that my NUC has lesser options in its BIOS than yours?

 

At Euphony Audio they told me that an internal SSD works with UEFI but it didn't work either using the trial image. Or is the trial image just for USB flash storages and the SSD image is different?

 

 

[Holzohr]

14 minutes ago, bobfa said:

I did not give the single box solution enough of a test.  It can be done with a USB boot of the trial, i think.  I have to move power supply and external drive to the main system.  MAN this is FUN!  REALLY!  I should get another NUC!

 

The questions I am asking myself is a single box NUC Euphony system as good or better than a dual box Euphony Roon system?  How does single box Roon sound?  I also really need to give the Stylus software a better chance.

 

It is possible to install the trial on hd/ssd. I did it with booting an Ubuntu USB stick and the tool/program Disks. Before you must unzip the euphony image and moving it to a second USB stick.

 

At the moment I have Euphony installed on an Optane 32GB SSD. Euphony replaced a Windows Server 2019 core installation with Fidelizer and AO. All I can say is I am not in the mood to change to Windows again.

 

Some pics:

[Holzohr]

6 hours ago, motberg said:

Thanks!  If you don't mind a quick question - - what playback software are you using ?

 

I am using Roon but tried the Stylus and HQPlayer also. At least as long as it possible with the HQPlayer. It needs a restart "now and then" so for the serious use case I am using Roon. 

 

11 hours ago, Chopin75 said:

Is this Optane Drive really that good? 

 

Hmm.. I don't dare to say anything about the impact on sound quality. I like its form factor and what I have read about the 3d-xpoint memory. I like that I could remove the ssd, the sata- and power cables. I also deactivated the sata-ports in the BIOS. So belated thanks to @lmitche for opening the Optane thread and bumping me and others on this topic.

[Holzohr]

48 minutes ago, Dev said:

 

 

Is there a way to update or do we need to reinstall from scratch ?

 

You can install the update via the Euphony menu. I just updated my trial. There are so-called Expert settings now (under System) where you can set the parameters for Squeezelite and also min/max CPU frequence.

[Holzohr]

@Poldi & @mikicasellas 

 

I am the number three here, I can not boot my NUC7CJYH. I only see the Euphony boot menu but I don't get an error message. Only the not stopping countdown loop (I didn' t keep pressing 'Enter'). 

[Holzohr]

2 minutes ago, mozes said:

Same thing happened with me. I fixed it by changing the boot from UEFI to Legacy.

 

The NUC7CJYH (and NUC7PJYH) doesn' support Legacy unfortunately.

[Holzohr]

So meanwhile, I have bought the Euphony license (and also HQPlayer embedded *ouch*). Thanks again to @bobfa for pointing me to Euphony. 

 

I must say Zeljko is offering great support. I have the Matrix Element H USB 3.0 PCIe card in use so the realtime priorities in rtirq.conf for USB on Euphony (and the same on Audiolinux) seem to be rather useless for my use case. Zeljko was offering to adjust the rtirq.conf via rc. I could adjust it by myself "offline" by booting a Ubuntu Live USB stick and mounting the Euphony partitions with it (the handling with Audiolinux and Gentooplayer before was a good school). Zeljko has made a screenshot from my rcstatus via rc that confirmed the higher realtime priority for the from the Matrix card used irq now.

 

Using an ASRock Z390M-itx/ac mainboard I like the network interface bridging feature very much of course. A simple press on the Bridge button caused a reboot and voilà! I never have seen it that easy.

 

The HQPlayer is missing some of the new filters (sync m or closed form m). They will be added in the next release. Of course I would like to have full access to the HQPe settings but understand that Euphony doesn't want the user diving too deep into the in part confusing settings of HQPlayer. 

 

 

The plan is to buy two more Optane sticks for installing Audiolinux and Windows Server 2019 on them. Though I like Euphony very much I can not stop tinkering for some reason. 🙂

[Holzohr]

5 hours ago, Holzohr said:

The HQPlayer is missing some of the new filters (sync m or closed form m). They will be added in the next release.

 

The new release is out!

 

You can choose Roon together with Squeezelite or StylusEP beside Roon + HQPlayer now. I think the next choosable thing should be Roon + HQPlayer + StylusEP then. 😎

 

 

 

 

The HQPlayer includes all the filters now but I can not save any setting there now. Hmm..

 

 

 

 

 

More expert settings now:

 

[Holzohr]

2 hours ago, Chopin75 said:

Can you clarify what Stylus + HQplayer means? As far as I know, you can only play either Stylus or HQplayer embedded or NAA. When you play HQplayer embedded the Stylus is actually disabled and the HQplayer takes over. Do you really mean using Stylus as library management but HQplayer that actually plays the music files ?  

 

You can use Stylus with the HQPe as playback engine. Please have a look at the Stylus settings.

[Holzohr]

8 hours ago, Nenon said:

In my system Euphony sounds better when loaded from my Optane card compared to loading from a USB Drive. But the trial version does not let you install the image on your SSD or Optane card. I think this is a bad decision on Euphony’s side, because you cannot test the full potential of Euphony.

I agree. It should be possible to install the Euphony trial not only on a USB drive.

 

Well, I have installed the trial on my Optane drive with help of a Ubuntu Live USB stick:

 

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

[Holzohr]

I have a i7-8700 with activated turbo boost and hyperthreading. I use the HQPlayer. The last pic shows the cpu cores 4-7 with DSD512 upsampling activated.

 

 

 

[Holzohr]

On 6/9/2019 at 4:57 PM, bobfa said:

I have still been playing music with the custom hardware that I have assembled. I have really enjoyed learning and testing all the different hardware and software.  I am still fine tuning my system.  I have started looking at USB cards.  I have started with the Matrix Audio card:

 

I have only had the card in my system for 24 hours but it really does make an interesting set of differences.  I will let it settle in some more before I try to A/B and report.

 

 

 

Hi Bob,

 

I have the same card in use and already wanted to write about that much earlier..

Some food for thought: Euphony and Audiolinux give realtime priority for usb by default. That means priority for the irqs of the mainboard usb ports. When you use such a USB 3.0 PCIe card there is a different irq in use. It is easy to find out about that with Audiolinux. The Matrix card is using irq16 on my system. No matter if with my Gigabyte H110N mainboard before or now with a ASRock Z390M-ITX/ac.

It's no special thing to change the rtirq.conf on Audiolinux. On Euphony I found a way with help of booting an Ubuntu Live USB drive and then mounting the both Euphony partitions to replace usb by i801_smb (browsing into /etc folder and opening a terminal window there: sudo nano rtirc.conf). Of course, a more convenient way is to ask Željko to change the both rtirq.conf files. I already had a conversation with him about this and he offered to make this changes via remote control.
The not so nice thing is you must repeat these changes after each new version of Euphony. The installation of a new version overwrites the rtirq.conf files. But well it keeps the braincells awake.

I *think* giving more rt priority to the irq16 really brings *something*. At least the good feeling that you don't waste rt priority for usb ports that are not in use. 🙂

Mario

 

 

 

 

The Matrix card is using the irq16

 

 

 

 

Audiolinux rt priority by default (with my former Gigabyte board)

 

 

 

Euphony rtirq.conf by default

 

 

 

from the top.log with the settings by default

 

 

 

 

the changed rtirq.conf

 

 

 

from top.log with the new rt pirority

 

[Holzohr]

1 hour ago, Chopin75 said:

I also use pinkfaun USB bridg, no issue but u think that priority change to the usb bridge would help with SQ? 

 

Maybe. It is up to you to find out. Why not sending a request to Željko? I would like to hear the opinions of other users of such PCIe-USB cards.

[Holzohr]

Quote

sudo nano rtirc.conf

 

Oops..it musst be sudo nano rtirq.conf

[Holzohr]

11 minutes ago, jcn3 said:

@lwr - according to the manual, it should be audiouser/euphony.

 

Wow! It works! It seems I have missed that or the manual at all.. lol 🤔

 

Thank you! 🙂

[Holzohr]

1 hour ago, Nenon said:

 

I guess they protect the root password. 

 

Yes, I can not edit the rtirq.conf file with audiouser/euphony. 

[Holzohr]

15 minutes ago, Lukasluis said:

I tried to scan the thread but I can’t seem to find how to load convolution filters to HQPlayerD. Can you point me to the guide please? Is this even possible with Euphony?

 

I fear there is no such guide. You don't have full access to the HQPe settings with Euphony. You could open a ticket and ask Zejlko to make the access to the HQPe web interface possible.

[Holzohr]

1 hour ago, davide256 said:

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?

 

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

[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?

[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

[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.

[Holzohr]

7 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

If you run Stylus on your server machine, and StylusEP on your DAC-attached endpoint, you should just automagically see the DAC appear as a device in the Settings of your Stylus machine. If you don't, open a ticket. It should be working...

 

Ok, now it works! After a reboot of both machines. The DAC appears in the setting of the StylusEP machine (of course). The Stylus server machine gives the message out: no audio-output active but it works! Thanks for mentioning about this distributed mode. It sounds very promising.

[Holzohr]

1 hour ago, flkin said:

I've been reading this entire thread but can't quite recall if anyone is playing Roon and Stylus EP on separate cores of the same CPU? 

 

Is this possible? On AudioLinux, RoonServer and RoonBridge can't be run together in the same server on different cores as far as I know.

 

Rajiv has posted something about it here: 

 

[Holzohr]

54 minutes ago, ASRMichael said:

Hi

 

Can someone advise what I need to copy and paste into the "Core Isolation field" for Roon Server and HP Player please? or an example would be good?

 

Thanks in advance

 

Please have a look here (first pic): 

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/55916-euphony-os-wstylus-player-setup-and-issues-thread/page/16/?tab=comments#comment-971780

 

 

It is a cpu with 6 physical cores. HT is activated.

[Holzohr]

3 hours ago, TheAttorney said:

I also tried ramroot from the trial Euphony on a different USB stick, but didn't get very far.

Firstly, on a brief initial comparison, ramroot did seem a bit better than boot from USB stick, but it wasn't sounding obviously better than my memory of the boot-from-Optane default. At this stage, it was too short a test and too many variables for anything to be conclusive, but then I ran into a problem:

 

Having activated ramroot, I then hit the disable button and rebooted. After ages, it still came up in ramroot, even though the info in the ramroot field and button seemed to acknowledge that I had indeed disabled it. So I retried and the same thing happened. As I don't have a monitor to connect to my NUC server, I can't follow the boot process for any clues, so I soon got bored with this and gave up. It doesn't help that my trial ramroot was created onto the only spare USB stick I had, which is several years old and probably contributing to the painfully slow boot up time.

 

 

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.