Euphony OS w/Stylus player setup and issues thread

[organics1]

So, is my little Partaker fanless pc with 4GB of RAM useless when it comes to the big DSD files? Currently, I'm using Daphile and I have no problem whatever with those files, some of which are double, quad, and octuple rates, and bigger than 8GB.

I was just days away from making the Euphony OS purchase when I ran across this thread. Glad I kept searching for reviews and info.

Is the company working on a fix? Or is Euphony and DSD just not the best match without huge computer resources?

[organics1]

12 hours ago, Anwar said:

Euphony can play DSD, no issues with huge computer resources.  The problem I reported was about buffering the whole album (or whole songs in playlist) when it exceeds 8GB.  If the buffering of whole songs in playlist is turned off, Euphony will only buffer (read into memory) the next song to be played.

 

My NUC7iBNH has 16GB RAM.  Even when ramroot is disabled, Euphony allocates max 8GB for buffering and O/S.  I hope this limitation can be fixed.

Thanks Anwar.

I've been fumbling around for quite some time to make sense of this whole computer music scene. Can get a bit confusing at times. Nonetheless, it's exciting and most enjoyable. 

[organics1]

On 3/5/2020 at 9:22 AM, TheAttorney said:

 

Actually, there are two separate options:

1. Buffer next track (the original option)

2. Buffer the whole queue of tracks to be played (the recently introduced further option).

 

If you disable both options, then there is no track buffering, so 4GB RAM should be enough to play any sized file in theory (I haven't ever needed to test this in practice).

 

However, I find it strange that @organics1 has gone to the trouble of getting huge DSD files (presumably for SQ reasons), yet continues to struggle with a paltry 4GB of RAM. And thereby misses out on a variety of SQ improvement options. IMO, attention to server improvements (not just RAM) is more important to ultimate SQ than the file type of the music tracks. I am frequently astonished by what can be achieved with my redbook FLAC files (a lot does also depend on the DAC design for this PCM/DSD question).

It may be getting the cart before the horse as far as some obviously "advanced" super duper golden ear high tech audiophiles like you are concerned. But, as per usual in this hyper consumer market things are often advertised as an improvement over something else. Doesn't necessarily have to be so, but that's the way of the world. Why did the world rush to buy so many SUV's when they first began to flood the market, even though they were the most dangerous vehicles ever created, and obviously couldn't leap tall buildings and climb mountains as advertised? Friends and relatives of the deceased are probably still trying to figure that one out.

In the case of the DSD files, I bought a few and discovered that, indeed, they sounded better than the 196/24 files I had. They didn't always move heaven and earth, but when I could compare them to the 196 files I had of the same recordings I almost always hear an improvement. 

The other thing here is that people and their systems evolve. At least average people seem to. Nice to meet someone who got it right the first time. ALL HAIL!

[organics1]

50 minutes ago, Chopin75 said:

One should also take into account if the recordings are originally made as DSD with minimal conversion to PCM during editing, and these are usually best. Files converted from PCM may or may not have advantages and it also depends on the DAC too

Precisely. And I have been hunting down companies that are making original DSD recordings, like Blue Coast Records, and NativeDSD, and work by innovative musician/technicians like David Elias. I was raised in Alabama on R&B, recorded and live. LOTS of it. But I enjoy country and folk equally as well...especially when it can heard through the kind of superb recordings done by the likes of Mr. Elias. 

My DAC plays native DSD files at the highest available rates.

[organics1]

Bought Euphony 9 days ago, and for a couple of days I was ALL GRINS. But, songs started skipping. It was even skipping from album-to-album. Tech support looked at the logs and couldn't determine much, saying only there appeared to be a few instances of the computer losing touch with the DAC. It was suggested I might have a problem with cables. I didn't find anything. I've run Daphile and Audiophile Linux through the same system for months and never had a similar problem. Back to using Daphile right now, and nary a whimper or hiccup.

Any thoughts?

 

Other than that issue I just want to say that this Euphony OS beats everything else I've used. It does everything better. I'd even go so far as calling the sound SUMPTUOUS.

Up until now Audiophile Linux was king of the hill for me. BUT, not being a LINUXphile I just got tired of chasing its gremlins day after day. By comparison, Daphile has been rock solid and relatively problem free.

 

As I stated in an earlier post, I use a Partaker fanless mini with a Celeron 3150: 1.6Ghz, 4-core. RAM is 4GB. Despite some claims to the contrary, could it be that this little thing just is not up to the task of doing justice to Euphony? It's what I've been thinking, and I'm eyeing another fanless box utilizing the i7-8550U, which is 4-core, 1.8Ghz. It'll take up to 32GB of RAM. How important is base frequency? (BTW, not interested in buying a NUC.)

[organics1]

1 hour ago, Chopin75 said:

How big are your music files ? DSD256 can run into issues like you describe if the RAM is not adequate and you have a huge file and running 100% buffer. Try running without buffer and see if that works better. You can also check how much RAM is being occupied when running. - same button u use to check temp/CPU. 

Thanks for checking in Chopin75.

I'm doing no buffering. And while I do have some albums that are very large DSD files, this problem occurs regardless of the size of the file.

[organics1]

Just to clarify...when I say regardless of size i mean it happens even when I'm playing MP3s.

[organics1]

1 hour ago, davide256 said:

Using only 4gb might be your cause. Definitely don't cache to RAM without more RAM

Maybe. Certainly rare are the programs that require fewer resources as time goes by. They're like growing babies. So, I guess I've found yet another one to feed. 😄

[organics1]

28 minutes ago, TheAttorney said:

It may be worth trying buffering, and even ramroot - it should make the playback process a touch more efficient - and 4GB RAM should more than enough for buffering several redbook or mp3 files. I'm not sure where you're booting from, but there's a knowledge base item about booting from usb stick requiring more RAM than when booting from internal drive - can't remember if this only applies to ramroot.

 

Are the CPU/temp graphs and disc traffic tables showing any CPU/RAM/disc overloading when the glitches happen?

 

Finally, Euphony Support is very responsive, so I suggest you raise a support ticket with them - you may be asked to send in some log files.

 

I'm booting from the main internal SSD, a 500GB Samsung 850EVO. Didn't think to check for overloading but will get on it. Will also try buffering. Thanks.

As I said in earlier reply to Davide256, I did send logs to support and they seemed a bit baffled.

 

Before I buy more computer resources it dawned on me that perhaps I should install Euphony to another drive and give it a go in my main desktop, which is i7-4790S with 32GB RAM.This way I get to see what effect significantly more resources will bring to the table.

[organics1]

2 hours ago, davide256 said:

I've experienced that it  scales in resolution as you improve processor from i3 to i7, never got it running on Pentium NUC because it wanted UEFI vs legacy boot.

Running on a standard PC with ATX power supply  while it works, wasn't much musical joy there, my assumption being electrical noise interference for USB out.

Never run it on less than 8gb RAM and when I check my idle (RAM loaded) installation its consuming 5.7GB of memory even before any music caching. I do use Roon

so there is likely some Roon database storage in that figure

VERY enlightening! That's the kind of info I've been looking for. Thanks.

As I experiment with my big rig I'll plug in a couple of my iFi de-crapifiers to see if that helps with electrical noise. Will let you know what I find. Your comments will definitely guide me in the right direction for my next dedicated music computer purchase, which I hope to research and complete in the next several weeks

[organics1]

8 hours ago, aangen said:

organics1, did you ever mention where and how you have your music files stored?

I had a thought that you might possibly be using an external USB drive for storage as well as using USB for output to your DAC. If that were true I had a hunch it may be an issue.

All the music is stored on the internal 500GB mSATA SSD, which also holds the Euphony OS.

Now you've got me thinking about the connection between the DAC and the Computer (especially since support mentioned that logs showed a temporary loss of contact between the two). I'm using an iFi Purifier 2, and an iFi mercury USB cable. Though I can't think of a reason why, could the Purifier be causing problems?

[organics1]

54 minutes ago, aangen said:

There is a very easy way to find out. 

😄

[organics1]

Under EXPERT SETTINGS there's STRESS CPU. A bit leary since it's under EXPERT, and because of the "proceed at you own risk" warning. Is it a recommended procedure?

[organics1]

15 hours ago, Nenon said:

 

 

I suggested that function to Euphony, and they implemented it. It's useful for a couple of things:

1. Speed up the burn-in process for power supplies and DC cables. Think of it as a cable cooker.

2. An easy way to test how much power your CPU draws under full (or partial) load.

3. Check the effectiveness of your passive cooling.

4. Overall reliability test of your computer. If it runs for a couple of minutes, and your computer shuts down, there is obviously something wrong. 

 

For example, I am using a 10A LPS for the CPU in a Streacom FC9 chassis and have noticed that under full load my AMD Ryzen 7 3700x CPU speed gets throttled, because the FC9 chassis can't keep up to cool down the CPU. This was easy to test with the Stress CPU test in Euphony. There are many other programs one can use but not convenient especially when you are using a headless server without a video card.

 

Something else I was considering doing was to compare the heat dissipation capabilities of a Streacom FC9 chassis vs. a HDPlex H5 chassis and to find out which one is more effective and how big the difference is. I have both chassis and identical motherboards / CPUs / etc. It would be a fairly easy test to do with that option. 

 

I hope more people find this useful. I expected that people would use it as a "cable cooker".

Much obliged! Just the kind of expert explainer I was looking for.

[organics1]

16 hours ago, aangen said:

I can't imagine how it would be useful to you if you are already having issues with skipping and drops.

About all those skipping songs...

When I couldn't figure it out I decided I'd park Euphony and come back in a month or two when I've bought a possibly more competent i7 machine. I erased the drive and re-instaled my trusty Daphile, cuz I gotta have music. Then, when you suggested a couple of things I installed Euphony on a spare SSD a few days back and gave it another try. Out of superstition 😁, I was going to keep my mouth shut for a week or so until I was getting reliable performance. So, okay, she's purring like a kitten. Right now, at least. Possible reasons...a) there has been an update, maybe two, since my fist install; b) the new SSD is half the size, at 250GB, and, I've only put about 50GB of music on it; and c) I'm also playing from an external 240GB SSD. Could that be a factor?

So far, no problems, even when playing huge DSD songs. I've pulled up the temp/PCU/RAM monitor while I've listened to entire albums of various sizes, from low to high volumes. Even with the biggest DSD's the highest memory utlization was around 47% (of my 4GB). Core usage remained relatively low throughout most songs, and only once did anything look strange, and that was at the beginning of one of the songs on a DSD version of the Phoebe Snow album when cores "0" & "1" absolutely red-lined for about 2 seconds, and returned to a very low state. 

On average, memory usage ranges between 21 and 36%, even on big files like the David Elias "The Window," in DSD512.

Go figure.

[organics1]

5 hours ago, davide256 said:

I found that having local music storage degraded the midrange compared to sourcing files from NAS. And that WiFi was of lesser sound quality than wired Ethernet.

After my re-install several days ago things were going fine...no skipping or stuttering. That is, as long as I was playing from a USB-connected external drive (and had only 3 or 4 gigs of music on the Euphony Drive.) Last night I loaded the main drive (250GB) to about 80% capacity. Within minutes I was getting an error message every time i tried to select a new song: "Buffering from Web, please wait until the whole song is downloaded." And the song never loads.

Think I'll follow davide256's example and see what happens when I disconnect the ethernet cable.

[organics1]

13 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

Hi,

 

Something is clearly unhealthy in your environment, so definitely open a ticket. But as a sanity check, do the following:

• disable RAM root, then reboot.
• Uncheck all the options under the Settings > Music Service tab:
  
• Uncheck the cache option in Settings > Library:
  

Now see if it works. Assuming it does, you can add buffering back, then RAM root, and see if it works. 

Thanks austinpop....BUT, I've never used RAMROOT, cache, or any of the other stuff in the list except Song histogram which was somehow checked. In fact, when I first bought Euphony a few weeks back the stuttering started about a day later and a ticket was opened. They told me to uncheck Song histogram, and the stuttering stopped. A couple days later the dropouts within songs began. Support couldn't figure it out, so I parked it, and went back to Daphile. Several days ago I re-installed. There had been a version update, and it played without problems (from the external SSD) up until last night when I decided to load up my 250GB Euphony Drive with music. The TROUBLES returned. Today, I removed the music from the main drive and again used the external. The TROUBLES left. So far about 4 hours playing smoothly.

No doubt, with help from you guys we'll get it straightened. I've got Euphony one one drive and old dependable Daphile on another and can easily switch them out when needed. Time heals all.

[organics1]

27 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

Ah yes, the TROUBLES. What you need is a backstop to ensure they never happen again.

 

<Obscure Brexit/Ireland reference.>

😁

[organics1]

When I started using Euphony several months ago I worried a lot about resources because I am using a simple mini PC with a Celeron chip and 4GB RAMS and I was getting a lot of hiccups, mostly stuttering and dropouts. Even after following the recommendations of Support things remained tenuous. I decided I should just park it until I could afford a more powerful setup. A few weeks later I noticed a system update and I tried it. 99% of my headaches were gone. The other 1% disappeared on the next update.

Before Euphony came along I was struggling with AudiophileLinux, which was the sweetest program I'd ever heard on my system...and I had tried them all. But, not being a Linux genius, it was giving me pure fits because it ALWAYS breaks! Euphony relieved me of all that agony, and continues to provide superb SQ. Eventually I will convert one of my i7/32GB computers to music server duty. For now, though, everything is copacetic. 😄

[organics1]

4 hours ago, lwr said:

This OS update has resulted in a striking increase in detail, tonality, and PRAT in my system.  Highly recommended.

My reaction exactly. The moment I heard it I thought, "What happened? Is it my old brain, or has there been a dramatic improvement in my little system?" Don't know what happened, but I will keep it.

The first thing I noticed was an increase in clarity and focus. Then, deeper soundstage. Especially nice since I have a Partaker fanless mini PC with a Celeron chip and only 4GB of RAM. WOW!

[organics1]

29 minutes ago, maxst67 said:

Thanks for the reply, as regards the Psu I am waiting for the material to build a power supply with Belleson voltage regulators.

The pc is composed of an i5 8600t processor with 8gb ram is that enough?

Welcome to the international arms race! 😄

[organics1]

4 hours ago, davide256 said:

They call it server grade, whatever that means... its not the consumer grade.

Considering the high asking prices for some of this RAM it would be nice to know for sure that you're getting the classification you THINK you're paying for. So far, I've seen electronic and audio suppliers across Europe asking from a couple hundred to nearly $500 for a 16GB stick of Apacer, without offering to verify their "industrial" claim. I've tried searching for Apacer info but the corporate communication infrastructure is an absolute maze.

Many of these manufacturers don't want to waste time on low volume consumer sales...or even directing you to the proper retailers. Most often if you follow any info they give it's out of date, and/or the retailer is surprised they're even on the list.

[organics1]

On 5/28/2021 at 1:15 PM, PavelDosko said:

Hi guys. Is there any of you who switched to Euphony of Daphile? Intended use Euphony Stylus without roon, without HQPlayer, on one PC (i7 7900, 16 GB Apacer, 128 GB SSD Samsung, HDPlexATX 400, SOTM tx USBexp, powered by HDPlex 300W - iFi iGalvanic3 - DAC Rockna Wavedream, music from NAS and Tidal ). What was the main difference between SQ Daphile to Euphony?

Euphony does have a more refined sound in my system. BUT, not so much that I'm willing to deep six Daphile, which represents the least amount of hassle. I've got two Optane drives, one for each. When I get close to driving myself to madness with Euphony I switch back to Daphile...and bre-e-e-e-e-a-t-h-e. 😄

[organics1]

3 hours ago, ASRMichael said:

What exactly is Euphony doing that doesn’t let you breathe? 

Quite simply the seemingly endless CHOICES! With Daphile set up is super simple and the choices are few. It may not be what some people consider the creme de la creme for SQ, but it sounds decent enough, and it serves well simple minds like mine. With Euphony you've got a nearly endless supply of amusements, such as tweaking processor settings. Since Euphony was introduced participants on this forum have literally spent years discussing the Holy Grail. It is in deed a noble and nice pursuit if that's your interest, and you've got loads of time. There are explorers, and there are settlers. 🙂

[organics1]

16 hours ago, edwardsean said:

 

That's a lovely way to put it, and of course, each to his own. 

 

I would add though, if you've already pressed on to custom Windows servers, I think you're already in explorer territory. 

 

I think Euphony sounds great out of the box and you don't have to get into the more complex tweaking. I was sold as soon as I heard it before I made any adjustments. 

Well, any exploring/discovering on my part is usually purely accidental. 😆 I'd hesitated to try ramroot because of having only 4GB in my cheap little Celeron-based mini computer. But a few weeks ago I got a new fanless i7 rig with 32GB! Ramroot gave me an etched and edgy sound. AWFUL. I was crestfallen. Then, I realized I had tweaked the hell out of my Fountek ribbon tweeters when I built them several months ago, using Jantzen Superior caps, and bypassing them with Dueland Precision Bypass Caps (both copper and silver foil), plus Jantzen wax coils. So, the speakers were already doing pretty good SQ-wise, and for whatever reason, ramroot wasn't helping. Proving, once again, that there's more than one way to skin a cat. 

Also got a SQ boost about a week ago when I upgraded my music file storage with a Thunderbolt-connected ICY Box PCIe enclosure containing an Optane 900 SSD powered by my Sean Jacobs diy LPS. I think both Euphony and Daphile got a kick out of it.