Euphony OS w/Stylus player setup and issues thread

[AudioDoctor]

2 hours ago, davide256 said:

I’m going to suggest you do your own check as that does not agree with observed behavior when I disconnect the ethernet cable during play. Stylus will always play the next song. When I use Roon with HQPlayer it stops after current song if Ethernet is disconnected. I’m also wondering now if Roon is buffering current song to RAM or caching to disk. 

 

I can see Roon doing that in real time on my computer by watching the network in Ksysguard. I don't bother disconnecting cables.

[AudioDoctor]

So I did an experiment, I started a Cat Power album in Roon, and took a couple screenshots.

 

The first one is the album, you can see how long the first and second songs are compared to the third song.

 

 

Second picture is the network history after initiating playback and Roon downloading songs 1 and 2

 

 

Third picture is after song 1 finished and it downloaded song 3

 

 

Roon is downloading the entire song, or two and is staying one song ahead until the end of the album. After the song is finished there is essentially no network activity.

[AudioDoctor]

7 minutes ago, WilliamWykeham said:

... also, it looks like there is this thing called Intel Optane for best SQ - assuming I go forward with Euphony should I buy that and then install from the USB drive?  Or stick with regular M2 drive?  I saw a post here about installing the trial software directly onto an optane drive but it requires a linux computer which I don’t have.  

I don't have any idea about Optane, but I have Euphony on a regular M2 drive and I don't think I am suffering any sound quality loss because of it.

[AudioDoctor]

35 minutes ago, edwardsean said:

FYI: New update guys. 

 

Whats updated?

[AudioDoctor]

As much as I like Euphony, the fact that it has this issue playing gapless is my one problem, and it has to be a Euphony issue because HQP doesn't do this on its own. For the price of Euphony, it should be solved immediately as well.

[AudioDoctor]

I see the Euphony website says that one of the capabilities of Euphony is "sacd iso extract" However, I have not been able to figure out this feature. Anyone have some guidance?

[AudioDoctor]

10 minutes ago, anhton82 said:

Could I install Euphony on my new Mac Mini M1? 

 

No. not now and probably not ever. There is work to get Linux running natively on the new M1 chip, but I would not expect that to be useful for many years.

[AudioDoctor]

I don't have an installation of Euphony to refer to at the moment, perhaps someone here can answer these questions.

1) In a system with more than one storage drive, does Euphony show those as one pooled drive, or separate drives?

 

2) Is it possible to direct Stylus to play to an installation of HQPlayer elsewhere on the network rather than the embedded version included?

[AudioDoctor]

6 hours ago, c-w said:

 

1) Drives are shown separately (in Files view and Settings)
2) No, Euphony only knows how to connect and control local HQPlayer

 

Thanks. Not what I was hoping for but I appreciate the answer.

[AudioDoctor]

16 minutes ago, davide256 said:

I haven't been able to get Stylus server to do sustained play using HQplayer embedded  to a Stylus endpoint NAA but have been able to fake it out into initially

using Stylus server with HQPlayer. Hard to understand why what works well for Euphony with Roon/HQP to NAA is unsupported

for Euphony Stylus/HQP to NAA. The basic problem is that if the DAC is remote it gets lost from HQP embedded NAA configuration when using Stylus server.

FWIW the 1 minute of play I can get does sound pretty good.

 

 

I have used it before, and do have a license. I don't remember having an issue playing with Stylus to HQP to an NAA., but it has been a while. Do you have your music connected locally or on the network? Is the network share stable?

[AudioDoctor]

I think it would make sense for Euphony to remove HQPlayer from the OS entirely and allow to send output from Stylus to an external HQPlayer. If not remove it entirely, then give us the option to use an externally located HQPlayer.

[AudioDoctor]

10 hours ago, StreamFidelity said:

 

Why? The complete HQPlayer administration interface is accessible under Euphony. Click the HQPlayer icon.

 

It makes more sense to remove the few implausible input fields in Euphony.

 

Because... It would allow the user to use the most up to date version of HQPlayer, thats optimized for their hardware, and to use a GPU for CUDA or Rocm/AMD as well.

[AudioDoctor]

24 minutes ago, davide256 said:

Euphony has no native DSD upsampling so those fields allow one to do so using HQPlayer without leaving the Euphony GUI

 

And that HQP functionality is greatly expanded when using it outside of Euphony.

[AudioDoctor]

1 hour ago, davide256 said:

Which is why people buy HQPlayer Desktop instead of  HQPlayer embedded?

 

You lost me here?

[AudioDoctor]

9 hours ago, StreamFidelity said:

 

What kind of functions are they missing in Euphony / HQPlayer?

 

When I open the administration interface of HQPlayer under Euphony (click on the HQPlayer icon!), I get the same GUI as with HQPlayer Embedded.

 

I can set everything that I can do under HQPlayer Embedded. For example the Matrix Pipeline.

 

The ability to use an Nvidia or AMD GPU to assist with the processing and use better filters at higher rates as well as use a build of HQP that's optimized for your hardware.

[AudioDoctor]

19 minutes ago, davide256 said:

HQPlayer Desktop for Windows's GUI seems much more like your typical player than does HQPlayer embedded. At least in a a Foobar2000/DOS heritage kind of way.

 

 

I am still lost...

[AudioDoctor]

On 1/19/2022 at 11:49 AM, davide256 said:

So I finally have 3 computing devices of reasonable CPU power to play with. And probably to no one’s surprise who is an HQPlayer fan, Roon which sounds “ok” using HQPe to NAA sounds MUCH better if you can run Roon server to separate HQPe server to NAA. Is there a way to duplicate this with Euphony Stylus?

Stylus server > separate HQPe server > NAA

my setup

i3 NUC > i5 PC > Atom PC

 

I found the same thing when I separated Roon and HQPe to their own machines.I still like the sound of HQP by itself more.

 

I don't think there is a way to separate the pieces out from Euphony.

[AudioDoctor]

4 hours ago, FooFighter said:

Yep, I am yet owning the UP Gateway.

Question was really regarding a more affordable Euphony server hardware.

If HQPlayer Server is  running separately anyway then the requirements for the Euphony server are far lower I suppose, for example hosting only a Roon Core plus the Euphony management.

 

Endpoint can be my existing HQPlayer NAA.

 

Wondering about the sonic advantages if Euphony OS is "only" hosting the traditional components and playback chain is going from the Euphony-hosted Roon to separate HQPlayer and existing NAA.

That might sound identical to what I yet have right now without Euphony?

 

In other words SQ advantages come into play only when using the Stylus backend connected to the DAC?

 

Are you able to get Roon on Euphony to output to a separate HQPlayer device? Personally, I think that is an overpriced Roon device as it negates all the advantages Euphony has over Roon, and that's not using Roon but using Stylus instead. However, I can't tell you how to use your stuff, so you do you. I found the best sound quality when using Stylus either by itself or via HQPlayer and leaving Roon out of the equation entirely.

[AudioDoctor]

2 hours ago, FooFighter said:

thx for your honest answer.

I don't have Euphony yet, am just looking for improvements, so all good.

 

The point is that I want to use Roon as a frontend but improve the SQ behind it.

I am yet having an HQPlayer setup running as you might have read.

But the presentation running HQPlayer through Roon vs HQPlayer directly is veiled in favour of direct HQPlayer which is more fleshed out, clearer - I am yet sending harsher filters in HQPlayer to get closer to the non-Roon-presentation but I am feeling compromised knowing how it sounds out of HQPlayer directly.

 

As I now understand that it's not changing anything if I am running Roon just from a different platform my next question is if a Stylus endpoint is sounding better than HQPlayer out of Roon?

Can HQPlayer still be added after the Stylus endpoint or is it an either-Stylus-or-HQPlayer-decision? 

 

 

 

I haven't tried a Stylus endpoint yet, but I do have HQP NAAs around the house and i much prefer those to a direct USB connection from the HQP server. The Stylus endpoint works much like the NAA, I think, after that it goes to the DAC only. If I were using Euphony right now, I would user Stylus > HQP > either an NAA or a Stylus endpoint.

[AudioDoctor]

30 minutes ago, al2813 said:

I am exactly in the same spot as I will be introducing a NAA as my endpoint. However I understand from the Stylus manual that if I choose HQP embedded, I will need yet another machine elsewhere to run the Roon core (in order to use Roon as the control SW)? 

 

not necessarily, they can run on the same computer. I don't recommend it, and I don't even recommend Roon, but you do you.

[AudioDoctor]

2 hours ago, Dev said:

 

DDR6 RAM ? Wow! 😲

 

I am sure that is a typo.

[AudioDoctor]

3 hours ago, msb1 said:

https://www.amd.com/en/desktop-kits/amd-4700s

https://wccftech.com/amd-4700s-cpu-diy-desktop-kit-tested-once-again-full-pcb-with-playstation-5-soc-gddr6-memory-pictured/?beta=1

 

 

OOhh, GDDR6...

 

that makes a little more sense, but still news to me. This is usually on a GPU.

[AudioDoctor]

Nevermind, I got it...

[AudioDoctor]

4 minutes ago, novtom said:

Click Restart App (right high corner power button)

 

Thanks, I read the euphony manual and saw that I had to press activate someplace to get HQPe to work.

[AudioDoctor]

SO far, it's pretty good. I can't figure out what I like more. HQP or Stylus straight to the DAC.

 

Is there software that can run on the Pi that Stylus can stream to like HQP can to its NAA?