Euphony OS w/Stylus player setup and issues thread

[flkin]

22 hours ago, EliteDJ said:

Just Picked up an ASUS ROG Crosshair VI Hero AM4 AMD X370, same as is used in the Pink Faun 2.16x Music Server which looks to be a BEAST!!!  I'm thinking that they may be using Euphony as their OS of choice but that's a guess.  Anyone know the AMD processor that might reside in the Pink Faun 2.16x Music Server.  I'm thinking that it may need to be max 95 Watt TDP because the case they use looks alot like a customized HDPLEX H5 Gen2 which supports processors up to that rating.  Hopefully I'm on the right track.

 

Pink Faun uses Audiolinux OS. Both AudioLinux and Euphony is built on an Arch Linux base.

 

16 hours ago, Nenon said:

 

They were using AMD Ryzen 1700X in the 2.16 before. Not sure what's in the 2.16x. I would go with the gen 3, though. I would do the Ryzen 7 3700x or even the Ryzen 9 3900x if you can handle the power and cooling requirements. 

 

 

The processor in my 2.16x is still the AMD 1700x. The 2.16 is the base unit and the X version refers to added options like OCXO clocks, their PCX-1 wiring, PF fuses and Furutech NCF AC sockets.

 

The 1700x is already plenty powerful for Roon with upsampling and convolution. Of the 8-cores in the 1700x, I only use just 1 of them and it's still enough.

[flkin]

9 hours ago, EliteDJ said:

I found the exact Corsair memory that they are using in the 2.16x, it took a bit to figure that out.  Since I wanted video to be available for the 2nd SSD that will host WS2012R with Audio Optimizer and JRiver, I picked up a AMD Ryzen 3400G 4-core 3.7GHz with 4.2GHz Boost 65W CPU.  Does the 2.16 and 2.16x actually take advantage of the 8 cores?  I'm also assuming that the Pink Faun folks needed to add a video card to that motherboard to tweak the system's BIOS before shipping to clients because the AMD 1700x doesn't have built in graphics.

 

The Pink Faun SPIDIF card has clock options, I was always under the impression that when using a SPDIF connection to your DAC it would use the clock in the DAC, am I incorrect?  If I am correct, what is the advantage of updating the clock on the Pink Faun SPDIF card if is going to use the one in the DAC?

 

Thanks so far for everyone's replies and advice. Dave

Yes we're getting of track now. I'll reply to your questions in the Pink Faun 2.16x thread below..😄 

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/43629-pink-faun-216/?do=findComment&comment=976447

 

[flkin]

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.

[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.

[flkin]

3 hours ago, dc-audiogeek said:

 

Wow, definitely do not play around with Ramroot until you read the KB article! I turned the option on while I was using Euphony Stylus. Big mistake! I thought I bricked my Euphony install, but fortunately, Željko came to my aid as soon as I requested assistance.

 

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.

[flkin]

On a separate matter, can someone share their optimised way to copy the current song in RoonServer so that it's easier to paste it into Stylus search for playback? Is there a trick involved for a quick switch?

[flkin]

After Euphony installs into an internal disk and creates the 4 partitions, does anyone know if one can use the music partition to keep the main music files? 

 

Say Euphony is installed into an internal 1T SSD, with the music directory offering over 900G of space, would it be possible to use it as the main source of local files?

 

Especially when running Ramroot? 

 

Is there a special way to define the path where the music is stored? I am finding that Roon is confused depending on whether Euphony boots from USB flash drive or internal SSD and also normal boot or Ramroot boot. Each variation seems to require an entire new Roon setup. 

[flkin]

12 hours ago, flkin said:

After Euphony installs into an internal disk and creates the 4 partitions, does anyone know if one can use the music partition to keep the main music files? 

 

Say Euphony is installed into an internal 1T SSD, with the music directory offering over 900G of space, would it be possible to use it as the main source of local files?

 

Especially when running Ramroot? 

 

Is there a special way to define the path where the music is stored? I am finding that Roon is confused depending on whether Euphony boots from USB flash drive or internal SSD and also normal boot or Ramroot boot. Each variation seems to require an entire new Roon setup. 

 

Turns out I made a mistake clearly warned about in the help files about using Ramroot with "Copy App Config to Memory". Forgot to toggle it off first. RTFM

[flkin]

It will be interesting to see whether the new EtherRegen will have any effect as the music is buffered 100% in such an Euphony setup. 

[flkin]

One advantage of using internal SSDs is that it can be separately powered. Rather than onboard Nvme Optane which takes power from the motherboard shared with other components. 

[flkin]

I have a single box streamer with Euphony. From time to time I run, and leave running, Roon Server as Roon Core + StylusEP.

 

After a day or a few days, the system hangs and I have to reboot. Reply from Željko is to check whether it hangs if left on Stylus instead of RC+StEP. It doesn't. So something to do with Roon and Euphony (or that version of Linux).

 

Same problem occurs for me using AudioLinux in the past during version 2 and after months of troubleshooting with Piero still couldn't discover the issue. 

 

So I've given up now and after each session of listening, I simply reboot to Stylus after switching off the DAC

[flkin]

An interesting discovery about Euphony  😉

 

I wonder if this has already been discovered or whether its a designed function of Euphony of which I was unaware but there is a way to run Stylus and Roon at the same time with the same music database without having to switch between the two in the Euphony Select Audio System menu.

 

Before last night, I had to choose either to play by Stylus for the sound quality or Roon/StylusEP to use Roon's excellent music discovery interface. And I had to switch between the two using the "Select Audio System" menu.

 

Well it turns out you don't have to. 😄

 

Step 1:

I play Stylus from my all-in-one Pink Faun 2.16x streamer (PF). My music database is in this streamer. I select the upsampling function by "HQPlayer for Stylus".

 

Step 2:

I installed Roon in another server on my network which happened to be a spare SonicTransporter (ST) I had lying around and was repurposed into a Plex server for my movies. From here, I pointed to the same music library inside my PF.

 

This way I was planning to use Stylus for playback but have the Roon resource ready at a moments notice to research or find music.

 

Step 3:

With the recent version of Euphony, there is a new function which allows Roon to play higher than 192kHz files through Squeezelite using HQPlayer as the conduit. It's simply to opt to use HQPlayer in Roon and to use "euphony" in place of "localhost", then select to use Squeezebox devices in Roon's menu settings. Then selecting HQPlayer as the output device - which should be working as StylusEP via HQP.

 

This all works fine as expected but I found that HQP was upsampling my Roon playback despite Roon saying it wasn't supposed to with the upsampling settings the same as what I selected inside Stylus. This might be that I selected to use HQPlayer in Stylus inside the PF streamer or that my Roon installation was outside of Euphony.

 

Whatever the case may be, with these settings, I further found that I could then run both Roon (from ST) and Stylus (from PF) side by side and play tracks from either, from the same database, without having to switch systems inside Euphony. Playing a track from Roon would stop Stylus playing and switch to Roon. And vice versa, with Stylus automatically stopping Roon's playback upon selecting a Stylus track.

 

It's very nice to be able to switch between the two instantly. Hope others will find this useful too! 

 

Cheers, Kin

 

 

Unanswered questions:

- How does Roon/StylusEP/HQP upsampled sound compared to Stylus?

- Perhaps there is no need to upsample and Stylus/Roon will still work side by side? 

- Will the EtherRegen now finally sound good if it's placed between the SonicTransporter and my Pink Faun acting as an Euphony End Point?

 

 

[flkin]

16 minutes ago, ASRMichael said:

Hi is this working the same way as I posted in #872?

Perhaps? Were you able to run Stylus and Roon/StylusEP at the same time with one Euphony license at that time?
 

 

[flkin]

5 hours ago, flkin said:

An interesting discovery about Euphony  😉

 

I wonder if this has already been discovered or whether its a designed function of Euphony of which I was unaware but there is a way to run Stylus and Roon at the same time with the same music database without having to switch between the two in the Euphony Select Audio System menu.

 

Before last night, I had to choose either to play by Stylus for the sound quality or Roon/StylusEP to use Roon's excellent music discovery interface. And I had to switch between the two using the "Select Audio System" menu.

 

Well it turns out you don't have to. 😄

 

Step 1:

I play Stylus from my all-in-one Pink Faun 2.16x streamer (PF). My music database is in this streamer. I select the upsampling function by "HQPlayer for Stylus".

 

Step 2:

I installed Roon in another server on my network which happened to be a spare SonicTransporter (ST) I had lying around and was repurposed into a Plex server for my movies. From here, I pointed to the same music library inside my PF.

 

This way I was planning to use Stylus for playback but have the Roon resource ready at a moments notice to research or find music.

 

Step 3:

With the recent version of Euphony, there is a new function which allows Roon to play higher than 192kHz files through Squeezelite using HQPlayer as the conduit. It's simply to opt to use HQPlayer in Roon and to use "euphony" in place of "localhost", then select to use Squeezebox devices in Roon's menu settings. Then selecting HQPlayer as the output device - which should be working as StylusEP via HQP.

 

This all works fine as expected but I found that HQP was upsampling my Roon playback despite Roon saying it wasn't supposed to with the upsampling settings the same as what I selected inside Stylus. This might be that I selected to use HQPlayer in Stylus inside the PF streamer or that my Roon installation was outside of Euphony.

 

Whatever the case may be, with these settings, I further found that I could then run both Roon (from ST) and Stylus (from PF) side by side and play tracks from either, from the same database, without having to switch systems inside Euphony. Playing a track from Roon would stop Stylus playing and switch to Roon. And vice versa, with Stylus automatically stopping Roon's playback upon selecting a Stylus track.

 

It's very nice to be able to switch between the two instantly. Hope others will find this useful too! 

 

Cheers, Kin

 

 

Unanswered questions:

- How does Roon/StylusEP/HQP upsampled sound compared to Stylus?

- Perhaps there is no need to upsample and Stylus/Roon will still work side by side? 

- Will the EtherRegen now finally sound good if it's placed between the SonicTransporter and my Pink Faun acting as an Euphony End Point?

 

 

Follow up on my unanswered questions:

 

- nope Stylus/HQP still sounds better than the Roon/StylusEP/HQP

- upsampling by HQP needs to be switched in for it to work

[flkin]

2 hours ago, fajita said:

 

I am at once both relieved and frustrated at this response.  Relieved as in it is not a hardware issue, but frustrated that I will not likely find a solution.  For interest, I got the following response from Roon Support regarding whether they have seen this issue before:

 

"Generally, Roon shouldn’t cause the entire machine to hang/crash. It is possible that Roon is using drivers that have an issue / are corrupt that other applications aren’t using (we’ve seen this happen on Windows), but the underlying issue in these cases isn’t Roon, just what Roon is trying to interact with."

 

It would seem that Roon is not playing well with some part of the Linux OS that is common between Euphony and Audio Linux.  In my case, with a whole home Roon based system and fickle users that will readily give up rather than restarting the server, I will likely have to switch back to a Windows Server environment.  If I learn anything more, will update.

Try unplugging the lan cable from your streamer when it is resting and see if that helps. It did for me. 

[flkin]

15 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

Hi Kin,

 

I think this only works because you are using the "real" HQPlayer for upsampling, as opposed to StylusEP's HQPlayer interface. Since I don't use HQPlayer, I can't verify this, but my likely explanation for this would be as follows.

• When you turn on HQPlayer upsampling, you activate an instance of HQPlayer on your PF2.16, which connects to the StylusEP player (aka gstp process).
• This combo of HQPlayer > StylusEP is now discoverable as an HQPlayer instance on the network.
• Locally, your path then becomes:
  • Stylus > HQPlayer > StylusEP
• Over on your Roon Core, it "sees" an HQPlayer instance on the machine "euphony" on the network. That path becomes:
  • Roon Core > HQPlayer > StylusEP

Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to work with "fake" HQPlayer - i.e. StylusEP with HQPlayer interface. This only seems to work with one server instance at a time: either Stylus or Roon Core. Coincidentally, I had sent an email to Željko asking for this functionality just last week. Great (or perhaps greedy?!) minds think alike.

 

 

Not surprising, since this is the benefit from caching and buffering that is implemented by the Stylus server.

 

 

Thanks for the explanation Rajiv. Since it already works in my setup, it might not be too difficult to implement your greedy request. 😄

 

With the right settings in HQP on the PF/Euphony side, the bypass filtering and upsampling technique works allowing me to only pass the music untouched through from Roon/StylusEP/HQP as a conduit as Željko intended. But it's not automatic, adjustments in HQP are required. This would be useful for those not interested to upsample.

 

If you do happen to suggest to Željko improvements to Euphony, can you consider these as well? :

 

- Displaying Tidal favourites sorted by date added

- Or better yet, a single screen displaying both local files and Tidal together, sorted by date added. That would almost replace Roon for me. 

- A more sticky sort (rather than rely on cookies on the browser as is his current technique I believe) that doesn't reset a few times per day

 

I made the suggestion about the Local Files + Tidal but he indicated it was difficult. Something to do with the functionality of control screens of local and Tidal files are different. I think this is one of Roon's strengths (compared with Stylus) in the way they integrate different music sources into one.

 

Perhaps your way with words will have a better effect than mine. 😄

 

 

[flkin]

4 hours ago, fajita said:

 

By help, do you mean that the issue resolved?  I have made some changes, as above, and am awaiting the next crash.  I will try this thereafter.

No, the issue isn’t resolved with Roon on AudioLinux or Euphony on my streamer. I’ve switched to using mostly Stylus and it seems stable. 
 

But one way I managed to get a Roon stable over many days was to unplug the LAN cable from the streamer. It’s a workaround and might give you further clues about why this occurs. I’m not following this issue anymore. 
 

Another clue, Roon in my SonicTransporter doesn’t hang and I believe the OS is a form of Linux? 

[flkin]

Hi Dr. Jimwillie, I have tried the following combinations of Euphony:

 

When I have 2 servers I am using a SonicTransporter i5 as the file server and a Pink Faun 2.16x as the renderer. If using just one server, then just the PF.
 

- separate servers running Roon in one and StylusEP in the other

- separate servers running Roon in one and StylusEP via HQP in the other

- single server running Roon/StylusEP 

- single server running Stylus alone 

 

In my particular system the last one running a single server with Euphony Stylus alone clearly provided the best sound. This is unfortunate because I prefer the Roon interface by far.
 

Since your Roon can run from your NAS why not simply try switching your renderer server (ie. endpoint) to StylusEP and see how it sounds? In StylusEP you can still set core isolation and other expert settings. The downside of running Roon to StylusEP is file resolution limitations to only 24/192kHz or dsd64 with DoP. To get past this limitation you can select to play to StylusEP via HQP. It’s not for any upsampling but Euphony found a way to use HQP as a conduit to bypass the squeezebox limitations. 
 

My ST has its own Sonicorbitor OS which runs Roon abeit you need the Roon license there for it to work so I didn’t have to install Euphony there. In earlier tests I tried using AudioLinux in the ST and AudioLinux in the PF as a two box solution. Again I preferred the single box AL installation despite it having to handle both Roon file management and Endpoint functions. CPU core isolation functions might have helped to reduce interactions. 
 

perhaps just try and see how it sounds? 

[flkin]

So glad someone else is asking for this change too. It’s caused by keeping the sort and album preferences in browser cookies which gets reset upon exit - probably for security reasons. Hopefully if enough ask for more sticky preferences it will ... stick!
 

Another irritating issue for me is lack of sort for Tidal favorites. Apparently the Tidal API might not have the option for a sorted display. Roon has a special deal with Tidal and is able to do it as they have a copy of Tidal’s metadata database. With that they can do what they want with the display. 
 

[flkin]

The way Roon displays both streaming files alongside local files is very nice. This isn’t possible in Euphony but I’ve found an obvious workaround that others may have been using all the while but it only just occurred to me recently. 
 

When using Euphony, I find myself switching from from local to tidal files and adjusting settings all the time. The current interface works but isn’t fast for me. 
 

Euphony’s control screens are just browser pages. You don’t have to access them through the Euphony app. You can do the same using Euphony’s IP address in a standard browser. So simply openIng  multiple pages of Euphony in a browser works fine. Then switching from local/Tidal/settings etc is a simple case of a single tap or swipe. 
 

Not sure if this might cause more overhead in the streamer though  

[flkin]

28 minutes ago, austinpop said:

Hey guys, strongly suggest you open tickets for this, otherwise unclear how these ideas get Implemented.

Brought it up with Željko already. 

[flkin]

Does anyone know what changes are in the latest version 20200519 just out?
 

Change log forgot to mention

[flkin]

21 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

Same here. I'm on 0430.

 

Maybe @flkin is seeing a DEV release?

No, I’m just the standard version. The usual update message popped up and proceeded as expected. At the end this showed :
 

 

The release link doesn’t show anything new, thus my original question. 
 

Can’t say if I hear any differences, I’m in between a few hardware changes and can’t isolate just the sound of the Euphony software update. 

 

[flkin]

Stylus with HQPlayer does have a digital volume control. I’ve seen it displayed in the control screen but haven't tried it out. 
 

But Stylus alone doesn’t seem to have one. 

[flkin]

I’m on 20200519. It’s pretty buggy in its  file editing functions with no obvious change in sound to 20200430.