Euphony OS w/Stylus player setup and issues thread

[Holzohr]

27 minutes ago, aangen said:

So now, just to make it interesting I have a new Tidal account.

Does Euphony OS have any MQA ability?

 

Euphony has pass through ability. In case you have a MQA-ready DAC give Tidal a try with the Stylus Player (or with Roon).

[Holzohr]

Ah yes, Roon is really the answer with the DS DAC and its Bridge II. I had this PS Audio DAC and the Bridge II until summer of last year. Roon and MQA worked well via the Bridge II.

My new X-Sabre Pro (MQA) does accept MQA via USB only whereas the iFi Pro iDSD (it replaced the DS DAC) even accepts MQA through all inputs.

[Holzohr]

7 minutes ago, FelipeRolim said:

 

In both cases, taking care to have the JCAT USB Card FEMTO as output.

 

I start to believe that Euphony is rather something for systems without such PCIe cards. The irqs of the mainboard USB ports get realtime priority by default (the same in Audiolinux). These PCIe cards (in my case a Matrix Element H) use a different irq without rt priority. The good thing is it's possible to adjust the rtirq.conf.

Btw, I had a Windows Server 2019 system in core mode before (on my former computer) and have changed to Euphony but I am curious if my Matrix Element H will bring more benefit in a Windows system. I will give it a try on weekend.

[Holzohr]

16 hours ago, ASRMichael said:

 

 

Wow! What's the username and password for HQPe? That's new to me that's possible to access the web interface of HQPe on Euphony.

[Holzohr]

1 hour ago, ASRMichael said:

HQ Player user and password is Euphony & Euphony

 

Great! Thank you! That must be new. I was talking to Željko about access to the web interface of HQPe a couple of weeks ago.

[Holzohr]

3 hours ago, Nenon said:

 

Perhaps Euphony can be tweaked even more by configuring realtime priority to the PCIe card. Typically if you contact Euphony support with a request like that, Željko would remote to your box and apply the custom settings. 

 

Yes, you can adjust the rtirq.conf file even on Euphony without asking Željko. I have tried to describe it here 

 

[Holzohr]

20 minutes ago, Nenon said:

The real question is - did it make an audible difference in Euphony? 

 

Good question. I was not really sure about that with my iFi Pro iDSD. Now with my Matrix X-Sabre Pro my opinion is the changed rtirq.conf has a positive effect. The X-Sabre doesn't need the 5V for the handshake. Maybe that's a reason, too. I "only" have an iFi iPower 12V for the Element H at the moment. I plan to install Windows Server 2019 on this system on tuesday. Have a spare 32Gb Optane stick for this.

[Holzohr]

3 hours ago, ASRMichael said:

Hi, anyone here having issues with Ramroot & Roon?

 

I setup Roon using my backup, all up & running with Ramroot disabled. I enable Ramroot & tick box copy to.... reboot. Load Roon & all settings have gone. I need to restore from backup again. So effectively each time I come in/out of Ramroot, Roon requires setup again. 
 

???

 

Euphony support 'ramroot'

[Holzohr]

On 11/25/2019 at 5:10 AM, austinpop said:

The other feature that looks promising is the ability to direct Stylus output to a UPnP renderer.

 

That's interesting! I am just playing with JPLAY Femto on my Windows machine. Stylus plus JPLAY Femto as renderer that could be a winning team.

[Holzohr]

On 11/26/2019 at 11:55 PM, Holzohr said:

 

That's interesting! I am just playing with JPLAY Femto on my Windows machine. Stylus plus JPLAY Femto as renderer that could be a winning team.

 

Quoting myself. I could test it and it works indeed but in my setup it doesn't make that much sense. I regret (in this case) a bit that I have sold my iFi Pro iDSD. 

Also, I like more the handling with Stylus on the Server NUC and StylusEP on the Endpoint NUC but always switched back to Roon (on the same Server NUC) for convenience (and for using Roon with JPLAY on my Windows machine).

 

Today I activated the StylusEP on the Endpoint NUC again and the first time that I took notice of this:

Quote

Finally StylusEP can present itself as HQPlayer endpoint to Roon. Add StylusEP hostname or IP address as the address of HQPlayer in Roon.
StylusEP will not upsample anything but it will play songs of any samplerate and even DSD formats thus avoiding limitations put on Squeezelite protocol in Roon.

 

Voilà! Now I have the StylusEP running in HQPlayer "dress". Even DSD256 playback is possible so indeed no more limitations à la SlimProto. I am still not sure if it brings any benefit soundwise compared to an activated Roon Bridge on the same Endpoint NUC or compared to StylusEP via SlimProto but I think it is a very nice way to use Roon with the Stylus player.

[Holzohr]

My 7i7DNKE is still in the NUC case. I have activated low power and deactivated HT and Turbo Boost.

 

 

[Holzohr]

@austinpop Hi Rajiv, did you already test Roon and StylusEP via the HQPlayer way? Wondering what you think about the sq. One issue I have is the low volume of StylusEP after each boot (or when I switch from RoonBridge to StylusEP). A restart of StylusEP does fix it though.

 

Mario

 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/55916-euphony-os-wstylus-player-setup-and-issues-thread/page/35/?tab=comments#comment-1020227

[Holzohr]

14 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

I don't use HQPlayer, as my DAC prefers native sample rates.

 

No need to use HQPlayer! 😀 The trick is to add the ip address of the StylusEP in Roon under Settings/System/HQPlayer.

 

From the last Euphony-beta:

 

Quote

Finally StylusEP can present itself as HQPlayer endpoint to Roon. Add StylusEP hostname or IP address as the address of HQPlayer in Roon.
StylusEP will not upsample anything but it will play songs of any samplerate and even DSD formats thus avoiding limitations put on Squeezelite protocol in Roon.

.

Btw, I have a HQPlayer 4 embedded license and another for HQPlayer 4 desktop. I don't use any of them with my current DAC at the moment.

[Holzohr]

1 hour ago, mnuno10 said:

It's possible to use Sotm 200 as renderer with Euphony? In my case the Euphony detects the Sotm 200 as upnp device but when I play a music appears multiple times  a message saying something like "Buffering...Waiting for music to be download" and music don't play.

 

Let me guess. That happens when you play music from Tidal (or Qobuz)? Between the songs? In this case the behaviour is "normal". I didn't like it either. I have tested the UPnP feature with JPLAY femto.

 

I fear without Roon or HQPlayer embedded you can use the SoTM 200 as UPnP-renderer only (not sure about this MPD-thing). With music from your hard disk/NAS the UPnP option makes more sense (imho). The Euphony app is pretty fast here. I have installed Euphony on a Optane stick.

[Holzohr]

I see. It wasn't that bad here. Do you have any other UPnP renderer?

 

I use the Stylus player now and then only. For the daily use I prefer Roon.

[Holzohr]

It seems the PTS server came with an Intel i3-6100U . Euphony's new SUMMUS is probably based on a NUC8I7BEH that comes with an Intel i7-8559U.

 

I plan to replace my endpoint NUC7CJYH by my current server device NUC7i7DNKE and to order a NUC8I7BEH as new Euphony server. I like to have low power devices on server and endpoint side. I also like my Windows PC but wouldn't want to let run it 24/7.

 

Btw, my new favorite way of playback: Roon -> StylusEP via adding its ip-address as "HQPlayer" also works when you run the Roon core somewhere else. In my case on the Windows machine. 

[Holzohr]

5 hours ago, seatrope said:

Has anyone tried using the new StylusEP as a HQplayer "endpoint" for Roon Core yet? Again, no HQPlayer really involved, just a way to preserve Roon's library management and UI while getting the sonic advantage of Stylus.

 

I basically cannot give up Roon's UI mostly so that the wife can stick with what she's used to, but would love to get some of Euphony's sonic advantages. I'm running Audiolinux now and would pay for a license if this StylusEP/HQplayer endpoint feature works (again without HQPlayer, just with Roon). I have a lot of DSD128 and DSD256 albums that I listen to a lot - the StylusEP with Squeezebox emulation doesn't work for me as that's only limited to DSD64.

 

Yes, I am using it for about two weeks now. I have three DSD256 albums and some more in DSD128. I have the feeling there is a 'uptick' in sq compared to Roon Bridge but I only use a cheapo NUC7CJYH with original ps as endpoint. The plan is to replace it by a NUC7I7DNKE and to buy a better ps.

 

Using StylusEP as "HQPlayer" is imho definitely worth a try. 

 

 

[Holzohr]

Finally I have placed my NUC7I7DNKE (booting from Optane stick) board into an Akasa Plato X7D. Using it as endpoint now I indeed note a improvement in sq compared to my NUC7CJYH (booting from USB stick). 

 

I have running the StylusEP "as HQPlayer" for Roon (Roon server is running on my Windows machine) and have added "0-1 gstp 2-3" for the CPU isolation. Hopefully, tomorrow will arrive an ISO Regen.

[Holzohr]

51 minutes ago, flkin said:

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! 

 

That's a really interesting discovery indeed! I run the Roon server on my Euphony system (NUC7i7DNKE) together with StylusEP via "HQPlayer" and switch to Stylus now and then. I also have a HQPe licence for the NUC but don't use it at the moment. 

 

Not at home untill tomorrow but will give it a try reactivating the Roon server on my Windows machine (it's a Roon bridge at the moment).

 

Thank you.

Mario

 

[Holzohr]

1 hour ago, k27R said:

The Euphony website says that the trial version does not allow you to install the OS to an internal drive.

 

I have done this with help of an Ubuntu Live stick. Ouch, almost one year ago. 

https://audiophilestyle.com/forums/topic/55916-euphony-os-wstylus-player-setup-and-issues-thread/page/3/?tab=comments#comment-941032

 

I think @Nenon has found another way of installation.

[Holzohr]

1 hour ago, HeeBroG said:

Does Euphony do the unfolding of MQA Master Quality files automatically?

 

On my system it somehow only does 24/48.

 

Is there a setting I need to switch on?

 

Nope. You need Roon to do the first unfold.

[Holzohr]

Željko asked me to share the Playing from RAM in Euphony article. In generally he begs us to check out the whole knowledge base more often. Lot of answers there. 🙂

 

 

Quote

Playing from RAM in Euphony

 

While the song is playing it is beneficial to sound quality to reduce other system activity that would normally occur: reading song bytes from storage or network.

The best way to do this is to preload the whole song to RAM before playing. Euphony tries to do that whenever possible but the exact functionality and extent of buffering depend on several factors:

• song location - local (disk or network) or online (Tidal, Qobuz) 
• output location - local DAC or UPnP endpoint
• player in use - Stylus, StylusEP, Roon, RoonBridge, Squeezelite, HQPe

I will try to cover all possible combinations and explain what exactly happens in terms of buffering a song to RAM.

Stylus

Stylus player will preload local songs to RAM before playing only if the 'Buffer before play = 100%' option is enabled.

Online songs will be always buffered to RAM (regardless of 100% buffer option) but if a new song is added to the queue and the play starts immediately then the buffering will happen during playback. Buffering happens at max network speed so this network activity will go in parallel to playback for at least 5-10 seconds of playback - depending on your network speed, song quality and song length.

However, if you just add the song to the queue and you wait until it is downloaded in full and only then you start the playback, the song will play without any additional network activity - it will be fully played from RAM from the start to end.

This is also valid for the next song if you add at least two songs. Second song will be also downloaded in the background at the same time so if you add at least 2 songs to the queue from online sources you will have to wait until both are fully buffered to have a chance at 'clean' 100% buffered playback.

Note that if you add more than 2 songs to queue and you wait until first two are fully buffered before playback in the moment when first finishes and second starts playing the download of the third song will start in the background and you will not have a clean playback of the second or any of the following songs in the queue except the last one.

Stylus also has 'Buffer albums added to queue' setting and 'Buffer queue' command. This setting only has an effect on local songs. 

These will both do the same thing - buffer all songs present in the queue to RAM. However, if you add the album with Add & Play the playback of the first song will start without waiting for the whole album to be buffered so your first song will not play in a clean way (but all others will). Of course, it is possible that the whole queue or the whole album added to the queue will not fit in available free RAM. In that case buffering will stop when there is not enough space. Songs that were not buffered will be buffered at the moment when they are next to play (remember that Stylus always buffer current and the next song).

While it would be easy to implement the buffering of the whole online album we are just not allowed to do that with the API we are using.

Stylus + HQplayer

When HQPe is enabled in Stylus and the source is Qobuz the file will be downloaded fully to RAM before actual playback (this is because we noticed that HQPe sometimes won't play Qobuz song urls). Tidal songs played through HQPe will not be buffered at all.

Stylus to UPnP endpoint

When Stylus output device is UPnP Renderer endpoint Euphony will fully buffer an online song before offering playback url to the UPnP Renderer. Playback URL offered is local url pointing to the song location in RAM drive, This means there is still network traffic between Euphony and Renderer but there is no other internet traffic during UPnP playback, Stylus always serves local URLs because some UPnP renderers require special UPnP-specific header fields that online music services don't provide so playback fails (and there is no way to detect if Renderer will play an URL until this is actually tried.)

Stylus and 'Use cache' option

Option 'Use cache' is a convenience option which will make copy of any song added to queue from external resources (mounted USB drives or network shares) and put it in special /data/Music/E_CACHE folder. Next time you need those songs they will be accessed from that cache. This can help in several ways:

• Songs that you listen often will be available even if your external storage is not attached or your network share not connected.
• Songs will load faster (if your Euphony installation drive is fast) and there will be much less usb or network traffic. If buffering options are not enabled this can also improve sound quality.
• If used in conjunction with '100% buffer' and 'Buffer albums added to queue', where you want an ideal situation: to listen the whole album from RAM with absolutely zero unnecessary background activity or network traffic - then your waiting time for the whole album to be buffered is much shortened! And even in situations when the whole album cannot fit in RAM, buffering at the moment of playback of the songs that did not fit will go from cache and will be much faster and have minimum impact on listening experience.

To clarify the last point: while album buffering will stop when there is no space left in RAM (rest of the songs will not be buffered), buffering of individual songs at the time of playback will expunge already played buffered songs from RAM to make space for current one.

On the same note - once the cache is filled (there is no more space on Euphony /data partition) 'oldest' songs (those that were first added to cache) will be removed in order to make space for new ones.

Roon 

We don't know that much about Roon's internal workings but we do know that Roon will never serve an online URL directly to its endpoint (whichever endpoint is in use). Roon maintains a http server on which it serves the URL of its music stream. This stream can contain one song (endpoint will get another url for next song when first finishes) or it can contain many songs which are all served on the same URL as one continuous stream (much like ordinary online radio streams). It does not matter if the original song is a local song or an online song - Roon behaves in the same way,

All this points to some kind of preloading happening on the Roon side but from what we were able to gather while testing our StylusEP endpoint as Roon endpoint, and from monitoring network activity, we concluded that Roon does not actually preload the whole song. It does have some sort of memory buffer but it does not encompass the whole song to be played. This severely limits our options for buffering on the endpoint side but we cannot do anything about it. 

StylusEP as Roon endpoint

StylusEP can serve as an endpoint to Roon  (on the same machine or on the endpoint machine). Unfortunately, since Roon does not provide the whole song on its streaming URL, StylusEP can only buffer the amount of data available. As endpoint reports to Roon its playback position Roon decides when to provide more data based on that position (we did not investigate when this exactly happens, does it depend on percentages, on amount of data played or something else).

This all means that songs served from Roon cannot be played in full without intermediate network traffic somewhere during the playback time (probably happening multiple times). StylusEP will always try to read as much data as is available on Roon stream as fast as possible but there is no way to avoid network traffic during playback of a song.

StylusEP as Stylus endpoint

Stylus and SylusEP can be employed in two machine setup. When StylusEP plays a song served by Stylus then StylusEP will preload the whole song before playback. Stylus itself will respect 100% buffer and Buffer album added to queue flags itself and will keep songs in server RAM but StylusEP will pre-download those songs from Stylus server only one at a time, before playback.

Other players

Squeezelite or HQPe as Roon endpoints cannot do any better than StylusEP in terms of buffering - there will always be network traffic but for how long and in what intervals depends, in addition to Roon's buffering dynamic, to the buffer sizes in these applications.

 

[Holzohr]

7 minutes ago, audiofool1982 said:

Because I liked it, I bought the license for Euphony OS and also the HQ Player. I updated the registration code and the key on the setttings menu. However in the bottom of the page, it still says trial and 29 days left. Why? Do I have the delete the trial version and reinstall everything again?

 

Also I am not able to boot from the RAM. I still have to have the USB plugged in. I have a ASUS motherboard. What bios settings should I use to make the server boot without the USB? Please help.

 

Did you make the installation on your hard disk/ssd at all? After updating the registration code Euphony does offer this install option. The hard disk/ssd must be blank. Did you remove the Audiolinux installation before?

https://euphony-audio.com/hesk/knowledgebase.php?article=2

[Holzohr]

@audiofool1982 Hmm.. maybe it is even possible with Audiolinux bootet in RAM. Maybe an Audiolinux user can give you support.

 

Or with help of a Linux Live USB drive. I use for such things Ubuntu. Then start the programm GParted and remove all the Audiolinux partitions so the Optane drive is blank. Just found there is a GParted Live for USB drives.

 

Good luck!

[Holzohr]

1 hour ago, Johnseye said:

 

• HQPlayer can not be used as a stand alone player within Euphony.

 

 

You can chose HQPlayer embedded under Audio systems. Is that not what you want?

I also have a HQPlayer 4 Desktop version for my Windows system and a HQPe licence I still have to transfer on my new Euphony NUC.