Euphony OS w/Stylus player setup and issues thread

[biosailor]

Hello All

 

I apologise if I am throwing in a couple of dumb questions! I have a 30 day Euphony Stylus OS trial. After battling my way through installation on an older Macbook Air Euphony runs stably and what I hear is REALLY, REALLY good! I so much more like its sound than Roon.

 

However, before buying a permanent license (which I think I'll do), I have a few questions that I am struggling with.

 

Firstly, the trial version seems to run Roon server, but I cannot access it via Roon remote on my iPad. Has the trial version only limited access to Euphony's OS?

 

Secondly, with the fully licensed version, does Roon server sound the same if I'd run it on its own on a Mac, or does Euphony take over to generate just the sound I so much like? Maybe I am just running Stylus on its own with my trial version, without the involvement of Roon?

 

Thirdly, once I have a fully licensed version, if I store Euphony locally on my Mac, I understand that it'll overwrite the hard disk. So I'll end up with a Mac running Arch Linux for Euphony? The reason I want to do so is that I have only two USB ports on my Mac: one holds the library on an external SSD, the other port is connected straight to my Devialet.

 

Thanks for helping a newbie with Euphony Stylus!

 

Regards

[biosailor]

Is it possible having Euphony Stylus and the music library on the same USB drive. And if so, how?

[biosailor]

29 minutes ago, ASRMichael said:

Not tried myself but should work. Tick box share library over network. It uses SMB. On other pc map a drive & add your music. 

Could you tell me where that tick box 'share library over network' is? In settings?

[biosailor]

Thanks, great idea!

 

I am trying to set it up. I'll feedback.

[biosailor]

1 hour ago, biosailor said:

Could you tell me where that tick box 'share library over network' is? In settings?

Works! Thanks!

[biosailor]

Has anyone tried to use a really large USB drive to boot Euphony Stylus from? I am trying to boot it from a 6 TB USB drive to be able to add my library to. The drive flashes now for more than 45 minutes, Euphony appears on the network, but it hasn’t loaded yet fully. Are there any restrictions in using USB drives?

[biosailor]

Sorry, I was a little too nervous, Euphony has loaded, after about an hour from a 6 TB drive 😅

[biosailor]

I imported over 400 albums into the library and about one third is split into two albums: track 1 into one and the rest of the tracks into a second album with identical covers. Annoying! Has anyone observed the same? Are there solutions to the problem? 
All my albums are fine either in Roon or Audirvana.

 

 

[biosailor]

48 minutes ago, rico25 said:

I ran into a split problem but it was when the files were in different folders (eg CD1, CD2).

Maybe you can open a ticket for Euphony to watch 🙂

The tracks of an individual album are perfectly well contained in one single folder. I'll contact Euphony. It's annoying!

[biosailor]

14 minutes ago, al2813 said:

 

The only thing I had in hand is a 2TB usb drive. Took time to boot the first time but now works well. I would recommend Euphony to change the language in their documentation. 16GB is the minimum but the moment you add Roon it is clearly not sufficient. 

 

In the AL-Stylus shoot out thread the nuances were there but in my case they are not. Compared to my AL setup, that is not very well tweaked - I only use Ramroot which already improves things quite a bit, Stylus delivers a big improvement in SQ. Bigger stage, more organic sound. Using Roon the difference is there, but using Stylus player - wow this is a killer. I adore the Roon interface, but I am not sure if I will renew my subscription. 

 

My current server is not NUC based. It has a Jetway nf9m N2930 motherboard. The system drive is a Kingston 240gb mSATA SSD. I am planning to use it for the permanent Euphony system drive when I buy the license (which looks right now a real possibility). I don't think I can use Optan in this setup? 

 

I booted mine yesterday from a 6 TB drive. First boot took more than an hour, second boot was quick in about 5 mins.

 

How do you add Roon?

[biosailor]

4 minutes ago, al2813 said:

 

I assume you have a Roon subscription? If yes then you just need to select Roon as the Audio player. 

Yes, I do, lifetime subscription. Unfortunately, at the start of the trial period, I had to inactivate Roon on Stylus, and now I can't seem to re-activate it 😬

[biosailor]

4 minutes ago, al2813 said:

 

You can select and deselect Roon - I've done that, and it works. If not then just open a ticket. You get a quick response. 

 

Thanks, I managed to in the meantime 😀

[biosailor]

4 minutes ago, rico25 said:

In the example you post, the track 1 is "Various Artist"

so check in the tag of the track 1 that the artist (and album artist) is "Duke Jordan"

 

Got it! I'll check. But I have no idea why this changed all of a sudden to various artist.

[biosailor]

Finally managed to get Euphony/Roon working fully! Sounds MUCH better than running Roon alone.

For the moment, I am running Euphony on an old MacBook Air with a 6 TB HDD holding my library and straight USB-connected to my Devialet.

I guess at one point I should set up a NUC or similar for hosting Euphony.

Thanks for all the good input I got here!

 

 

[biosailor]

22 minutes ago, Speedy381 said:

That's the next worthwhile upgrade. I am running Euphony on an Optane in an i7 NUC with linear PS and it is so much better than my old PC

For a first step, I just wanted to have Euphony set up in my system, so the only free PC I had was an old MacBook Air (I was unable to get it running on my MacMini 2018, possibly because of the T2 security chip). 
I am still running the trial version, so I didn’t want to have any other expenses. It’s clear to me, I‘ll buy a permanent license.

 

I have a SonicTransporter i5 available with Roon server integrated. I could use this, but I‘d have to couple it with, say, a Microrendu to generate a USB connection. I need to research if that would work.

 

I already tried RopieeeXL. Stylus does recognize it, but wouldn’t play! Maybe with Roon server I could get it running.

 

Lots of things to try. It‘s fun!

[biosailor]

55 minutes ago, dminches said:

 

My guess is that your tags are different and that's why they files show up as different albums.  If they are in different folders they will show up separately as well.

 

Any chance you can put 2 tracks that you think should be in the same album in dropbox and we can look at the tags?

 

Will try to do that. Now that I run Stylus in Roon mode, all albums show up perfectly fine, unsplit!

[biosailor]

1 hour ago, dminches said:

 

My guess is that your tags are different and that's why they files show up as different albums.  If they are in different folders they will show up separately as well.

 

Any chance you can put 2 tracks that you think should be in the same album in dropbox and we can look at the tags?

 

You're spot on: I inspected Duke Jordan's eight track album 'Flight to Jordan' with kid3 tagger. It appears that track 1 has a line with the 'Composer', whereas tracks 2-8 lack the entry of the composer.

 

So I nee3d to re-tag quite a few albums!

 

 

[biosailor]

23 minutes ago, c-w said:

@biosailor

You can also try doing Full-Rescan of the offending album folder: navigate to the folder from Files view and click blue database icon on the top right while holding CTRL key.

If you have multiple album folders with the problem go up in the folder hierarchy and do Full-Rescan there.

 

Also, Composer tag is not part of the album identification so different Composer tags should not cause this problem..

Thanks, Will try.

 

After having a good look at my albums, I must say I need to re-tag man. I swapped them a lot between computers and tagging softwares, no wonder they got messed up. I‘m surprised I see nothing of this in Roon.

[biosailor]

25 minutes ago, davide256 said:

 

 

You can compare and edit within stylus, see screen below. Changes can be saved with local database or at source location. Just check the pencil box

for what you want to edit

 

 

Good to know! I am only beginning to grasp Euphony‘s deeper menus.

 

Thanks, I‘ll try!

[biosailor]

Just trying the following: I had my MacBook Air USB-ed straight into my Devialet. I have a SonicTransporter i5 hanging around onto which I‘ll try to boot Euphony. Now the SonicTransporter has no USB, only Ethernet to a switch. 
So for a trial, I disconnected the USB cable from the MacBook and plugged it into a Raspberry Pi 4 running RopieeeXL. And voilà, it works nicely! Can hardly believe it, am I doing everything alright?

 

I‘ll try the same thing tomorrow with my SonicTransporter. Lots of fun things to try!

 

 

[biosailor]

Unfortunately, still fighting numerous problems with Euphony's library. For example, Allen Toussaint's album American Tunes is imported only from track two on. I deleted the file in the music folder, updated the library, but it is still there on Euphony's web app! I re-copied the same album containing all tracks and I still see only tracks 2-12, track 1 is missing. How come that Euphony's web app doesn't refresh? Library management in Euphony is a real mess!

 

 

[biosailor]

13 minutes ago, al2813 said:

 

I have the same issue. The Euphony library is a complete mess with multiple items not working well.  Roon obviously it's the other way around - the library as well as GUI is their main strength. However, right now Euophony Stylus player sounds much better to my taste in my system so am using it now as default. I could not believe something will take me off Roon but it is happening. As much as the Roon layout is incredible, sound is still my top priority. 

 

Euphony's library management is a disgrace!

 

I basically have to jump from album to album and correct each one for proper tagging. In such a way, it works, but it is tedious, to say the least!

 

Yesterday, even worse, Roon's library got completely mixed up: clicking one album reviewed a completely different album underneath.

 

Euphony should definitely do something about it. For a software costing this much, I expect at least sound library management!

[biosailor]

18 minutes ago, dminches said:

 

Why is Euphony at fault if the tags are wrong?  Every software program manages tags differently and has its own convention.  I have had issues with Roon at times as well.  

 

 

I might have been a bit harsh, I apologise!

 

I never had those troubles with Audirvana and Roon. Never mind, since I like Euphony's sound so much, I'll take the trouble and correct many of this mis-imported files.

 

And, of course, I'll upgrade to a permanent license.

[biosailor]

Finally, after spending almost the entire day mending my music library, things are good again. Following problems occurred: split albums (one album contains only one track, the other the rest), empty folders, and, curiously, a number of albums starting at track 4!

 

I painstakingly fixed things by re-annotating the broken files in MusicBrainz and re-loaded them onto my MacBook Air.

 

Yesterday, I uploaded all albums in one go, it took about four hours to complete. My guess is that maybe interruptions in the net occurred that led to either split or empty files. I had this problem when I had an Aurender years ago. Uploading all files in one go never worked.

 

Whatever the reason was, It's fixed now and back to listening to music! It teaches me to be careful with the library!

 

Thanks for the good suggestions!

[biosailor]

6 hours ago, TheAttorney said:

Further to @dminches reply, whenever I've had such tagging issues where, say, one of the tracks appears elsewhere under a different artist or different album, I've always found this to be due to incorrect tags in the first place.

 

Basically, Euphony Stylus unconditionally believes what you give it and arranges the library to match. You don't see this in Roon because Roon assumes it knows better that you for any given album and recreates the library from its own online database, which works well most of the time, but isn't perfect either. E.g. for Classical albums, Roon often imposes the wrong cover art and I have to manually choose the original version.

 

Stylus' library management isn't it's strong point, that's undeniable. And it may well have some bugs outstanding, but most other apps have their own foibles. I love Roon's UI, but I struggled for ages to try to understand its library management system, much of which is deliberately hidden from users, for good and for bad.

 

I get around all of the above by having a master filestore for music files that's managed by JRiver (the first app I happened to buy years ago). JRiver's library and file management far exceeds Roon's, particularly with it's batch commands which are very powerful (if rather unintuative). Then import to Roon or Stylus or any other app. Which means I retain full control of my music files, which means it's easier to change to different music players whenever I want to.

Ok, so you do the metadata handling in JRiver, if I understand you correctly? I need to look into this as I happen to have a JRiver license.