Euphony OS w/Stylus player setup and issues thread

[Nenon]

10 minutes ago, bobfa said:

Guys. I love the info about other OS configs,etc. but let’s keep this to Euphony stuff. 

 

It's an interesting discussion, though. At least while done by open minded people, and before the party crashers (typically users with 5 digit, or close to 5-digit, number of posts who start talking about science and post faster that I can read) sniff the discussion. 

If anyone wants to start a new thread, I would be happy to move there and chat more. 

[Nenon]

Okay, let me try to to stick to the "Euphony OS w/Stylus player setup and issues" topic here. 

 

The most important setting in Euphony is to make sure software volume control is not used. That is the only setting that would really ruin the sound of Euphony. I see that @FelipeRolim has done that, and I assume @Nsxturbo has done it too. 

Improvements you can make are:

- Buffer before play - 100%

- Enable ramroot

- Use cache

- Set realtime priority to some processes / CPU Isolation

There is not much you can screw up in Euphony / Stylus, really. Tweaking your BIOS to get the best of Euphony might be a little different, though. If you have a really good power supply, I find Euphony sounding best when you tweak the BIOS for best performance - enable hyperthreading, don't limit the power consumption, enable turbo boost, don't limit the CPU frequency, etc. That would bring more dynamics. The problem is if your power supply is not  really good, enabling all these settings can have the opposite effect. The best solution would be the fastest hardware you can get with the best power supply you can afford. I am currently using an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X powered by a really good 12V / 20A LPS, and everything else powered by 5 Sean Jacobs DC3 rails - 3 for the ATX connector, one for the JCAT NIC, and one for the PinkFaun I2S card with ultraOCXO clock. 

If you do all that and you still prefer Windows over Euphony, by all means enjoy the Windows OS and please share with us, so we can try too. 

[Nenon]

3 minutes ago, bobfa said:

What have you found out about the CPU isolation, etc?  I have not tried that.  I will have to revisit my BIOS Settings as I do not remember where I left things.

 

Look at the screenshot @austinpop posted above. Mine are very similar, minus Roon and adjusted for 16 cores. Not at my house right now but I can post a screenshot later if you want to see it. 

[Nenon]

3 minutes ago, rickca said:

What is this 12V/20A LPS and where did you get it?

 

Ugh, as soon as I posted this I figured someone would ask and realized I should have been more quiet about it... It's my new DIY creation with a lot of help from a famous designer. It's big, heavy, powerful, and it seems as good as anything else I have tried so far. The problem is, I can't share details as this may turn into a commercial product one day. Sorry. I have tried to share every important experience with the community here, but that's the one thing that I can't discuss publicly yet. 

[Nenon]

21 minutes ago, FelipeRolim said:

On my computers (using JPLAY FEMTO dual-PC configuration, and also set up Sylus in "Server" and "End Point" modes), I have six power supplies specifically tuned for the best sound: two for processors (sigma11 with special components), two for motherboards, one for SSD (ldovr single rail) and one for JCAT USB Card FEMTO (ldovr single rail). I have two more ldovr for the JCAT Net Card FEMTO, but I haven't bought them yet. So, from what I've already set up and what you're saying, without changing my current hardware to a more powerful, I can only set the processor core assignments/frequencies and promote the BIOS adjustments. That's right?

 

If that's all, I think I should expect a miracle of these changes, because overcoming today's Windows will be very difficult.

 

Yep, remove any hardware resource limits and check if it is an improvement or not. A more powerful CPU would probably help more, but do what you can with your current hardware. I don't expect a miracle, but you may get an idea of how different it is tweaking for Euphony vs. tweaking for Windows. Keep us posted. 

[Nenon]

On 10/17/2019 at 11:27 AM, Holzohr said:

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.

 

In response to that, I would quote a post I made in the JCAT forum last night while comparing the USB output from a JCAT USB PCIe card and the motherboard USB outputs. Just to clarify I was running Euphony.

11 hours ago, Nenon said:

I can confirm that too as I am listening to a computer I just built for a friend of mine. Switching from the JCAT to any of the motherboard USB ports collapses the entire sound stage, makes the sound flatter and harsher, the bass becomes boomier with less accuracy. Also, some motherboard USB ports sound better than other, but the JCAT USB output is way better. 

The good thing is if one wants to hear what 'jitter' sounds like in digital audio, the switching between the JCAT USB output and the motherboard USB makes it really easy to hear :). 

 

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. 

[Nenon]

9 minutes ago, Holzohr said:

 

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

 

Yep, if you mount your Euphony drive externally, you can do that.

But you can't do it from Euphony, because audiouser (the only user we can SSH with) does not have permissions to write to this file, and we don't have the root password. Probably it would be easier for most people here to contact Euphony and have Željko do it. 

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

[Nenon]

Happy "ASUS ROG Strix X470-I  / AMD Ryzen 7 3700x / ECC Ram / 32GB Optane M10" user here

[Nenon]

1 hour ago, austinpop said:

One that I have been beta testing is a UI option in the Queue view to buffer all tracks in the queue from the current track on.

 

This is cool. I have been playing with my EtherREGEN, and although my feedback about the switch is positive, I have noticed that nothing beats the quality of 100% buffer and minimal/no I/O activity. The best sound from my source is achieved when there is no extra I/O activity. I would love to try that new UI option. 

[Nenon]

2 hours ago, aangen said:

I don't know about NVMe SSDs but I can tell you for sure that Samsung SATA SSDs sound wonderful. So much so I have never been interested in even trying Optane. I have a 4TB Samsung on my Euphony PTS server and harsh is not a word anyone would use to describe it's sound.

I got rid of my Samsung SATA SSD, because I did not like it. It was powered by a dedicated Sean Jacobs power supply and was still generating a lot of noise. That type of noise is typically not audible until it's gone... then you realize it has been there all the time. And once you hear how your system sounds, you never want to plug a SSD drive in your system ever again. 

 

2 hours ago, aangen said:

To me it feels like one guy said use Optane and a religion formed around it. Haven't heard it, so shame on me, but still.....

My tests were prior to ramroot... Just booting from Optane was immediately a noticeable improvement over booting from USB. And booting from SSD was significantly worse than USB. I had at least three friends who did that and reported the same results. None of them are here on the forum, btw. If it's religion, it must be the right one . 

[Nenon]

The new Euphony version is out. 

[Nenon]

9 minutes ago, RickyV said:

 

 Fantastic, Whats new?

 

Here is the full change log:

20200114
- Summus server special features (only active on Summus server)
- StylusEP can be used as HQplayer endpoint in Roon 
- Added option to convert all formats (except DSD) to WAV for Stylus + HQPe upsampling
- Added support for UPnP renderer endpoints
- Added option to buffer entire Queue to RAM
- Added indication of cached (light blue) and buffered songs (blue) in Queue
- Added option to skip library scan on startup
- Added 'Recendly added' Dashboard menu item
- Added intro page with option to change registration email for first-time users
- Added Expert option: Disk spindown timeout
- Added SMB version option to 'Add network drive' dialog
- Fixed Youtube playback issue that recently appeared due to changes in Youtube API made by Google
- Introducing 'Radio' flag - after last song put in Queue by user, next song is automatically added from local library (basic matching for now - to be improved..)
- 'Complete instalation' function now fully prepares the system - the same as 'Install'  
- Fixed Stylus + HQPe Qobuz playback (song is fully buffered before it is given to HQPe) 
- Fixed calculation of available RAM for entering ramroot
- Fixed Artist pic retrieval for currently playing song
- Updated HQPe to 4.12.2
- Added latest HQPe options to Euphony HQPe settings
- Monitor Roon updates while in ramroot (if update happened root fs is saved to disk automatically)
- Hostname change and timezone change should work in ramroot
- Improved update image download behaviour (you can resume interrupted/incomplete download) 
- Optimised communication between browser client and server
- Click on artist name opens artist's page on LastFM
- CTRL + click on release number on Library page opens Settings with Expert section expanded
- Fixed search for NAA devices on network
- Improved checks for internet connectivity
- Kernel security mitigations are disabled now

 

This is the option I am excited about:

- Added option to buffer entire Queue to RAM

 

[Nenon]

26 minutes ago, TheAttorney said:

Where is this option located?

 

Go to your queue. It's on the top.

[Nenon]

7 minutes ago, austinpop said:

 

This is the feature I posted about several weeks ago. I'm glad it's finally out in release form. Let me know what you think.

 

I've only just returned from some extended travel, so have not yet had a chance to try the official version.

 

I definitely like it. That was a great idea! 

[Nenon]

2 hours ago, Holzohr said:

I think @Nenon has found another way of installation.

It's mentioned in the post below but Euphony might have done some changes in the recent releases. I haven't tried this in a while.

 

On 6/30/2019 at 4:53 PM, Nenon said:

In my system Euphony sounds better when loaded from my Optane card compared to loading from a USB Drive. But the trial version does not let you install the image on your SSD or Optane card. I think this is a bad decision on Euphony’s side, because you cannot test the full potential of Euphony. However, it’s not difficult to install the image to your Optane card or hard drive/SSD from the command line. Here is a quick guide for those who want to try it. Important: All the data on your Optane card would be deleted. Make sure you know what you are doing. 

 

You would need to load a version of Linux on your server. You would also need to have root access to that Linux installation. In my case, I already have AudioLinux on a USB drive, so that's what I am using as an example below. Ssh to your server (username: audiolinux  /  password: audiolinux). Exit the Menu (CTRL+C). Type 'su'. When prompted for password, type audiolinux0. You now have root access.

1. Find the device name of your Optane card by examining the output of the  ‘fdisk -l’ command. In my case, it is /dev/nvme0n1.
2. Download the Euphony image: Run ‘wget http://euphonyimage-798b.kxcdn.com/euphony20190522v3.img.gz'. Find the most recent link from the Euphony web site. 
3. Install the image. First, run ‘ls’ to find the file name of the image. In my case, it is euphony20190522v3.img.gz. Run the following command: ‘gunzip -c euphony20190522v3.img.gz | dd of=/dev/nvme0n1’. Adjust the command with the correct image file name and device name (from #1 above) if needed.

Reboot and boot from your Optane card. Enjoy!

 

 

 

[Nenon]

1 hour ago, organics1 said:

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?

 

36 minutes ago, austinpop said:

Never used it, or found a need for it. 

 

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".

[Nenon]

4 minutes ago, Johnseye said:

 

I was able to use ramroot in trial.

 

To further that, I also installed Euphony directly to my Optane drive using a guide provided by @Nenon a while back.  Simply put, I copied the Euphony config to an Optane drive while logged into Audiolinux.

 

Post #373.