Euphony OS w/Stylus player setup and issues thread

[luisma]

On the console do you see an ip address been given to you? 

[Superdad]

2 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

 

Check your router for devices with assigned addresses. Then point a browser at that IP. 

 

My router will not see any devices with self-assigned IP addresses.  I can see and connect to other devices on my network without any problem (see my above reply--same machine booting AudioLinux with same connection is seen and logged into with no problem!).

 

2 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

I've also found that Euphony's login screen (which as we know is unaccessible) changes once its ready for a browser connection. It can take a few minutes.

 

I see that change, but IP address stays the same self-assigned/fallback.

 

2 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

Also if you're trying to connect multiple devices with Euphony on them you need to change the host name and use different registrations. 

 

Nope just one.  I keep things simple here.

[luisma]

Can you try from a working device in your network to ping the ip address you are getting in the 192. 168 1.xxx network? 

[luisma]

Man if we all could live in the same state this would be so much easier

I'm grilling bone in ribeye here in Florida today and listening to Rodrigo and Gabriella Orion, would love to have you guys for supper 

[Johnseye]

I've given Euphony a few hours over this weekend. Here's some of my initial thoughts. 

 

HQPlayer with Euphony is still a WIP.  Here's why it won't work as it should, or is at a minimum very cumbersome.  Here's some answers to my questions for Zeljko at. Euphony. 

 

I asked him how to setup a server with endpoint. Specifically with the server running HQPlayer and the endpoint as an NAA. I wanted to point HQPlayer to the NAA but my audio card is disabled.

 

I also want HQPlayer to autoselect the source Format, PCM or DSD, not set to only one or the other. 

 

His response... 

 

 " This is still slightly inconvenient. You have to have some audio card present. You can temporary enable internal audio cards in order for HQPlayer settings to show up so you can make necessary selections. NAA output for HQPlayer was a recent addition, we are still working on this..."

 

"Auto" mode is omission on our part, we will add it in next release, sorry."

 

Based on what I've heard so far with either Stylus running direct from my server to the DAC (not through the tX-USBexp as that's still hosting my external drive) and with Stylus upsampling through HQPlayer direct to the DAC, I hear a slight dimensional improvement but at a loss of smoothness.  I could guarantee you would be able to identify the digital source this way.  The digital edge is back and the dimensional improvement is so slight that it's not worth the negatives. 

 

The player GUI itself is buggy and cumbersome. I do think it's slightly better than HQPlayer's player but doesn't come close to Roons ease of use. I can see much time and frustration from using the Stylus player.

 

That said. I will be putting the 30 day trial through a lot more listening, including getting the server and NAA functioning together with HQPlayer. 

 

[Johnseye]

5 minutes ago, luisma said:

Man if we all could live in the same state this would be so much easier

I'm grilling bone in ribeye here in Florida today and listening to Rodrigo and Gabriella Orion, would love to have you guys for supper 

 

They just came through Chicago. I so wanted to go but had work obligations. Next time. 

[Superdad]

Oh wait!

 

I have a connection now--with the NUC.

 

Normally I have the NUC's Ethernet cable plugged into a Cisco Catalyst switch that sits under my audio rack.  And that switch is fed directly from my ZyXEL ADSL modem/router.  So as last ditch effort I bypassed the Cisco and ran the cable from the router directly into the NUC.  Booting now the NUC picked up a proper 192.168.8.xxx address from my router.

 

The question is, why does AudioLinux have no problem getting address from router--though Cisco switch--whereas Euphony won't and self-assigns?  Is it too impatient and too quick to self-assign?

 

Now I can at least play with Euphony a little bit.  But it won't be a fair comparison because the Catalyst switch is a benefit to SQ (as will be our own EtherREGEN later on ;-)).

[luisma]

1 minute ago, Johnseye said:

 

They just came through Chicago. I so wanted to go but had work obligations. Next time

Yeah next time John, it was still nice to meet you and bobfa 

 

I have the same config with HQP and very very subjectively I hear miskas naa image as the best in my system with the higher details, Audiolinux and stylus are not there with my equipment, I'm sure others will differ, now listening to euphony local played content sounds great 

[luisma]

3 minutes ago, Superdad said:

Oh wait!

 

I have a connection now--with the NUC.

 

Normally I have the NUC's Ethernet cable plugged into a Cisco Catalyst switch that sits under my audio rack.  And that switch is fed directly from my ZyXEL ADSL modem/router.  So as last ditch effort I bypassed the Cisco and ran the cable from the router directly into the NUC.  Booting now the NUC picked up a proper 192.168.8.xxx address from my router.

 

The question is, why does AudioLinux have no problem getting address from router--though Cisco switch--whereas Euphony won't and self-assigns?  Is it too impatient and too quick to self-assign?

 

Now I can at least play with Euphony a little bit.  But it won't be a fair comparison because the Catalyst switch is a benefit to SQ (as will be our own EtherREGEN later on ;-)).

Sounds like a possible layer 2 issue with arch Linux or dhcp /bootp not really sure Alex 

Mine honestly worked out of the box, even the wireless link 

[Dev]

I never had any network issue with Euphony - either Wired or Wifi. With Wired connection I had an intermediate switch connected to an wifi extender and didn't have any issue either with AL or Euphony.

 

Maybe just try rebooting the Catalyst and see if that works.

[sergiocurvelo]

6 hours ago, bobfa said:

I am pretty sure that Stylus the music player is not designed to run out to an NAA or a D to D like the Rendu.

 

Start out simple with a single box running the OS and the player and see how that sounds.   I started out with Roon and two boxes.  

 

This is why they have trial software!!

 

Thanks for being a part of this experiment.

 

 

 

Bob,

Two days  testing various configurations and I can assure you that Stylus + HQ Player is the best setting I've tested here. More natural textures, analog, energetic and lively sound.

As the server is near my DAC, I will no longer need the Ultra Rendu and I'll sell it. I'll connect the Curious USB cable in the DAC working along with ISO Regen.

 

Maybe Roon's annual subscription will not be renewed. Until November I will decide.
But I'm really enjoying it: Stylus+Tidal+HQ Player

 

[bobfa]

5 minutes ago, sergiocurvelo said:

 

Bob,

Two days  testing various configurations and I can assure you that Stylus + HQ Player is the best setting I've tested here. More natural textures, analog, energetic and lively sound.

As the server is near my DAC, I will no longer need the Ultra Rendu and I'll sell it. I'll connect the Curious USB cable in the DAC working along with ISO Regen.

 

Maybe Roon's annual subscription will not be renewed. Until November I will decide.
But I'm really enjoying it: Stylus+Tidal+HQ Player

 

Out of interest, what are your HQPlayer settings?

[mozes]

41 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

I hear a slight dimensional improvement but at a loss of smoothness.  I could guarantee you would be able to identify the digital source this way

I reached the same conclusion on my system even with the tX-USBexp. I settled on LMS-->StylusEP. This takes away the harsh edges on the highs. 

[austinpop]

1 hour ago, Johnseye said:

 

 

Based on what I've heard so far with either Stylus running direct from my server to the DAC (not through the tX-USBexp as that's still hosting my external drive) and with Stylus upsampling through HQPlayer direct to the DAC, I hear a slight dimensional improvement but at a loss of smoothness.  I could guarantee you would be able to identify the digital source this way.  The digital edge is back and the dimensional improvement is so slight that it's not worth the negatives. 

 

John, what is "the loss of smoothness" in comparison to? Your reference configuration? Which is? Single server connected to DAC? Roon Core?

 

I'm just curious.

[austinpop]

1 hour ago, Superdad said:

Oh wait!

 

I have a connection now--with the NUC.

 

Normally I have the NUC's Ethernet cable plugged into a Cisco Catalyst switch that sits under my audio rack.  And that switch is fed directly from my ZyXEL ADSL modem/router.  So as last ditch effort I bypassed the Cisco and ran the cable from the router directly into the NUC.  Booting now the NUC picked up a proper 192.168.8.xxx address from my router.

 

The question is, why does AudioLinux have no problem getting address from router--though Cisco switch--whereas Euphony won't and self-assigns?  Is it too impatient and too quick to self-assign?

 

Now I can at least play with Euphony a little bit.  But it won't be a fair comparison because the Catalyst switch is a benefit to SQ (as will be our own EtherREGEN later on ;-)).

 

Hi Alex,

 

I've never had any issue with Euphony IP allocation on any of my devices - although granted, I never tried a Mac - so I think what you're experiencing is by no means typical. With that said, it is true that Euphony does take much longer on first boot to get to it's fully booted state. Now that you have got it to work, maybe check to see if on subsequent boots, it works through the Catalyst?

 

Also, is the Catalyst switch a managed switch? If so, are there any configured rules or filters that may be getting in the way? I only use unmanaged switches, so have no experience with the quirks of managed switches.

[RickyV]

53 minutes ago, mozes said:

I reached the same conclusion on my system even with the tX-USBexp. I settled on LMS-->StylusEP. This takes away the harsh edges on the highs. 

This configuration would be only beneficial for local files, right? Not tidal play

[Johnseye]

7 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

John, what is "the loss of smoothness" in comparison to? Your reference configuration? Which is? Single server connected to DAC? Roon Core?

 

I'm just curious.

 

I recently posted it in your thread. Same sCLK-EX based ASRock server now with an sCLK-EX modified NUC, also using the sNH-10G. Mixture of SR7, HDplex LPS and Uptone LPS as the PSUs. 

 

Roon Core with HQPlayer desktop on the server. NAA on the NUC. 

[sergiocurvelo]

1 hour ago, bobfa said:

Out of interest, what are your HQPlayer settings?

 

My DAC works only with PCM (Metrum Onyx). My settings in the HQP are: Upsampling ->  24/192 Khz, Sinc-M Filter and Dither NS9. I'm still going to test other filters (poly-sinc family). HQ Player provided more spatiality, transparency and clarity. It gives some refinement and sounds great. Although the Stylus works very well alone.

[austinpop]

I notice several reports of increased harshness, loss of smoothness, and the like associated with trying Euphony on a standalone server, whether with Stylus, Roon, Roon+StylusEP, HQPlayer, Roon+HQPlayer, and Stylus+HQPlayer.

 

I've written about this myself, and it's the reason I don't consider my system finished just yet. What going to a powerful standalone system, compared to NUCs and other endpoints, gives you is big, weighty, DYNAMIC sound. However, this puts a bigger burden on the quality of the PSU on the server. And limitations of PSU quality manifest as harshness.

 

Very few of us besides @romaz have SR7 rails powering our server's ATX and EPS inputs. In my system, with the HDPlex 400W LPS powering the ATX and EPS inputs, and with an SR4-5 powering the JCAT Net Card Femto, I still find lingering harshness to be a problem.

 

My solution, and something I suggest people try, and report back - is to tune the "Max frequency" in Expert settings.

 

For example, on my server that has the i7-8700T CPU, the base frequency is 2.4GHz, and the peak is 4.2GHz. I have set the BIOS to be wide open - i.e. I've enabled Hyperthreading and Turbo. With Min and Max frequencies unspecified, Euphony's frequency hovers between 3.9 and 4.0GHz. This behavior is expected because - as confirmed by Željko - Euphony is preconfigured to use the "performance" CPU governor, so frequency is effectively pegged to the max allowed.

 

In my system, I can almost completely tame the harshness by setting the Max to 2.4GHz (or 2400MHz). Based on trial and error, I find a minimal rise in harshness up to 3200MHz, and depending on the music, I can stand to go up to 3600MHz.

 

Why bother to skirt this harshness boundary? In a word - dynamics! That is the elixir that this config provides, and I think we all have different thresholds of what we're willing to pay for it.

 

So bottom line - to those experiencing harshness with Euphony - try tuning the Max frequency and see what you think. Please report back.

[austinpop]

10 minutes ago, austinpop said:

With Min and Max frequencies unspecified, Euphony's frequency hovers between 3.9 and 4.0GHz.

 

Since Euphony suppresses the current frequency display in the "Temp/CPU" monitor when the Min and Max are unspecified, you can achieve visibility of the default behavior by setting ONLY the Min frequency value to something low like 800MHz.

[Dev]

2 hours ago, austinpop said:

For example, on my server that has the i7-8700T CPU, the base frequency is 2.4GHz, and the peak is 4.2GHz. I have set the BIOS to be wide open - i.e. I've enabled Hyperthreading and Turbo. With Min and Max frequencies unspecified, Euphony's frequency hovers between 3.9 and 4.0GHz. This behavior is expected because - as confirmed by Željko - Euphony is preconfigured to use the "performance" CPU governor, so frequency is effectively pegged to the max allowed.

 

In my system, I can almost completely tame the harshness by setting the Max to 2.4GHz (or 2400MHz). Based on trial and error, I find a minimal rise in harshness up to 3200MHz, and depending on the music, I can stand to go up to 3600MHz.

 

Not in the context of harshness but I have played around with CPU freq settings in Euphony earlier and can't make it to work for some reason. Even with min and max set to whatever setting, the freq is always reported to hover around 3.9 - 4.1GHz with the i7 NUC. I do have hyper-threading off in the Bios but that shouldn't matter to set the core frequency. It worked fine with AL and pstate-frequency app. I might have set something in the Bios that prevents it, need to figure it out. By any chance did you try the Euphony freq setting on the NUC ?

[Johnseye]

2 hours ago, austinpop said:

I notice several reports of increased harshness, loss of smoothness, and the like associated with trying Euphony on a standalone server, whether with Stylus, Roon, Roon+StylusEP, HQPlayer, Roon+HQPlayer, and Stylus+HQPlayer.

 

I've written about this myself, and it's the reason I don't consider my system finished just yet. What going to a powerful standalone system, compared to NUCs and other endpoints, gives you is big, weighty, DYNAMIC sound. However, this puts a bigger burden on the quality of the PSU on the server. And limitations of PSU quality manifest as harshness.

 

Very few of us besides @romaz have SR7 rails powering our server's ATX and EPS inputs. In my system, with the HDPlex 400W LPS powering the ATX and EPS inputs, and with an SR4-5 powering the JCAT Net Card Femto, I still find lingering harshness to be a problem.

 

My solution, and something I suggest people try, and report back - is to tune the "Max frequency" in Expert settings.

 

For example, on my server that has the i7-8700T CPU, the base frequency is 2.4GHz, and the peak is 4.2GHz. I have set the BIOS to be wide open - i.e. I've enabled Hyperthreading and Turbo. With Min and Max frequencies unspecified, Euphony's frequency hovers between 3.9 and 4.0GHz. This behavior is expected because - as confirmed by Željko - Euphony is preconfigured to use the "performance" CPU governor, so frequency is effectively pegged to the max allowed.

 

In my system, I can almost completely tame the harshness by setting the Max to 2.4GHz (or 2400MHz). Based on trial and error, I find a minimal rise in harshness up to 3200MHz, and depending on the music, I can stand to go up to 3600MHz.

 

Why bother to skirt this harshness boundary? In a word - dynamics! That is the elixir that this config provides, and I think we all have different thresholds of what we're willing to pay for it.

 

So bottom line - to those experiencing harshness with Euphony - try tuning the Max frequency and see what you think. Please report back.

 

Thanks, I'll cap the frequency and see if that helps.  Once I get things setup identically as I had with Audiolinux I'll be able to have an apples to apples comparison.

 

I could go back and use my SR7 with the HDPlex converter and power the CPU from a different rail on the SR7, which I believe is what Roy is doing now.  I'll see where some tinkering takes me first.  I had been very, very happy with my sound.  Hopefully this step back will lead to a step forward.

[austinpop]

1 hour ago, Dev said:

 

Not in the context of harshness but I have played around with CPU freq settings in Euphony earlier and can't make it to work for some reason. Even with min and max set to whatever setting, the freq is always reported to hover around 3.9 - 4.1GHz with the i7 NUC. I do have hyper-threading off in the Bios but that shouldn't matter to set the core frequency. It worked fine with AL and pstate-frequency app. I might have set something in the Bios that prevents it, need to figure it out. By any chance did you try the Euphony freq setting on the NUC ?

 

Yes, unfortunately this is a known issue with the NUC7i7. I ran into this a while back and discussed it with Željko. Since I could get the frequency changes to "stick" with AL, we hypothesized that it could be an issue with the older kernel that Euphony uses. In fact, Željko even went ahead and built me a prototype with the latest kernel, and the problem is fixed with the new kernel.

 

However... SQ degraded significantly with the new kernel. This is one of the dangers of this world. Euphony takes a very cautious approach to kernel upgrades, and they do careful listening tests before updating kernels and packages. Anyone using AL should be very careful before doing a kernel upgrade.

 

Anyway, for the time being, this does mean that frequency control is not working on the NUC7i7.

[austinpop]

1 hour ago, Johnseye said:

 

Thanks, I'll cap the frequency and see if that helps.  Once I get things setup identically as I had with Audiolinux I'll be able to have an apples to apples comparison.

 

I could go back and use my SR7 with the HDPlex converter and power the CPU from a different rail on the SR7, which I believe is what Roy is doing now.  I'll see where some tinkering takes me first.  I had been very, very happy with my sound.  Hopefully this step back will lead to a step forward.

 

Hi John,

 

Yes, definitely try that. However, keep in mind that Roy is powering the ATX and EPS from separate SR7 rails. If you only have one SR7 rail available, I believe he felt the EPS rail makes the bigger difference. Also, for this use case, these rails need to be the SR7 6A or 10A modules. I suspect an SR7 3A module will be too anemic for this purpose.

[Johnseye]

18 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

Hi John,

 

Yes, definitely try that. However, keep in mind that Roy is powering the ATX and EPS from separate SR7 rails. If you only have one SR7 rail available, I believe he felt the EPS rail makes the bigger difference. Also, for this use case, these rails need to be the SR7 6A or 10A modules. I suspect an SR7 3A module will be too anemic for this purpose.

 

Yup I know. I could shift 2 SR7 rails in a single server environment. Will have to double check on the amperage of the second rail though. That could be an issue. Paul upgraded a component but not sure if I'm pulling a full 6A.

 

I did just get the HQPlayer NAA working on Euphony so I'm in business. Roon with HQPlayer on Euphony for now.  Will try that with Stylus and HQPlayer next.