Euphony OS w/Stylus player setup and issues thread

[bobfa]

32 minutes ago, Blake said:

 

Thanks Bob, much appreciated. Good point, the Summus may have some additional tweaks/improvements.  I would probably just go with the Summus given the price delta between the Summus vs. DIY.

 

 

 

 

 

5 minutes ago, elan120 said:

Unless Summus using a modified motherboard or having some special upgrades elsewhere, just from the cost point of view, DIY will be lower.  The $2,500 purchase price likely will only have the typical SMPS, to upgrade to LPS, the ~$500 will still need to be added.

All of this adds up rather quickly.  I would be careful of rushing into this.  

[fajita]

16 hours ago, flkin said:

I have a single box streamer with Euphony. From time to time I run, and leave running, Roon Server as Roon Core + StylusEP.

 

After a day or a few days, the system hangs and I have to reboot. Reply from Željko is to check whether it hangs if left on Stylus instead of RC+StEP. It doesn't. So something to do with Roon and Euphony (or that version of Linux).

 

Same problem occurs for me using AudioLinux in the past during version 2 and after months of troubleshooting with Piero still couldn't discover the issue. 

 

So I've given up now and after each session of listening, I simply reboot to Stylus after switching off the DAC

 

I am at once both relieved and frustrated at this response.  Relieved as in it is not a hardware issue, but frustrated that I will not likely find a solution.  For interest, I got the following response from Roon Support regarding whether they have seen this issue before:

 

"Generally, Roon shouldn’t cause the entire machine to hang/crash. It is possible that Roon is using drivers that have an issue / are corrupt that other applications aren’t using (we’ve seen this happen on Windows), but the underlying issue in these cases isn’t Roon, just what Roon is trying to interact with."

 

It would seem that Roon is not playing well with some part of the Linux OS that is common between Euphony and Audio Linux.  In my case, with a whole home Roon based system and fickle users that will readily give up rather than restarting the server, I will likely have to switch back to a Windows Server environment.  If I learn anything more, will update.

[bobfa]

56 minutes ago, Blake said:

 

Thanks Bob, much appreciated. Good point, the Summus may have some additional tweaks/improvements.  I would probably just go with the Summus given the price delta between the Summus vs. DIY.

 

 

 

 

Blake,

 

Tell us a bit more about what your goals are please?  There are a lot of options

 

 

[bobfa]

1 minute ago, fajita said:

 

I am at once both relieved and frustrated at this response.  Relieved as in it is not a hardware issue, but frustrated that I will not likely find a solution.  For interest, I got the following response from Roon Support regarding whether they have seen this issue before:

 

"Generally, Roon shouldn’t cause the entire machine to hang/crash. It is possible that Roon is using drivers that have an issue / are corrupt that other applications aren’t using (we’ve seen this happen on Windows), but the underlying issue in these cases isn’t Roon, just what Roon is trying to interact with."

 

It would seem that Roon is not playing well with some part of the Linux OS that is common between Euphony and Audio Linux.  In my case, with a whole home Roon based system and fickle users that will readily give up rather than restarting the server, I will likely have to switch back to a Windows Server environment.  If I learn anything more, will update.

I have run Roon on Linux for several YEARS and never experienced this.  Roon ROCK is linux.  There are many Linux variants out there that run this just fine.  My current hardware is running Roon on linux with no issues.  

 

There is something "special" going on in your environment.   There are a lot of simple debugging steps to try yet.  That is if you want to try!

 

 

[fajita]

44 minutes ago, bobfa said:

I have run Roon on Linux for several YEARS and never experienced this.  Roon ROCK is linux.  There are many Linux variants out there that run this just fine.  My current hardware is running Roon on linux with no issues.  

 

There is something "special" going on in your environment.   There are a lot of simple debugging steps to try yet.  That is if you want to try!

 

 

 

Not being a Linux guy, I can only imagine what debugging is like.  I like working on computers (have been doing so on Windows for a long time), but time has become something more precious lately, and experimenting has thus far interfered with the enjoyment of listening.  There is also the principle question of who should be doing the debugging - me, or the manufacturer of a product that advertised an integrated Roon experience.

 

So... I don't know.  I'll see what I can learn about debugging a linux machine and maybe I'll become inspired.

[bobfa]

13 minutes ago, fajita said:

 

Not being a Linux guy, I can only imagine what debugging is like.  I like working on computers (have been doing so on Windows for a long time), but time has become something more precious lately, and experimenting has thus far interfered with the enjoyment of listening.  There is also the principle question of who should be doing the debugging - me, or the manufacturer of a product that advertised an integrated Roon experience.

 

So... I don't know.  I'll see what I can learn about debugging a linux machine and maybe I'll become inspired.

Actually I doubt it is linux.  I am betting on some other items.

 

I would shut down the whole network first.

 

I would startup the linux machine clean, new install.  I would make sure it works with Stylus first.

 

I would then swap over to Roon and create a new test/demo account.  That gives you a couple of weeks to test and does not effect your existing system at all.

 

Then when we can debug from there.

 

Bob

 

[flkin]

2 hours ago, fajita said:

 

I am at once both relieved and frustrated at this response.  Relieved as in it is not a hardware issue, but frustrated that I will not likely find a solution.  For interest, I got the following response from Roon Support regarding whether they have seen this issue before:

 

"Generally, Roon shouldn’t cause the entire machine to hang/crash. It is possible that Roon is using drivers that have an issue / are corrupt that other applications aren’t using (we’ve seen this happen on Windows), but the underlying issue in these cases isn’t Roon, just what Roon is trying to interact with."

 

It would seem that Roon is not playing well with some part of the Linux OS that is common between Euphony and Audio Linux.  In my case, with a whole home Roon based system and fickle users that will readily give up rather than restarting the server, I will likely have to switch back to a Windows Server environment.  If I learn anything more, will update.

Try unplugging the lan cable from your streamer when it is resting and see if that helps. It did for me. 

[Blake]

2 hours ago, bobfa said:

Blake,

 

Tell us a bit more about what your goals are please?  There are a lot of options

 

 

 

 

 I only stream Tidal, and there is a possibility I could add Qobuz. I won’t be playing any local files.  Streaming only.

 

I am very happy with my Ultrarendu/LPS 1.2/EtherRegen combo.  I stream wirelessly from a MacBook Pro to Airport Express, then connect to the EtherRegen with copper.

 

It seems people really like Euphony for sound quality.

 

I was initially thinking of purchasing Euphony to install on the MacBook, but not sure how much improvement it would make given it would obviously not be installed on my endpoint UltraRendu so that is why I was thinking Summus.  I don’t want to spend a lot since this area is in such a state of constant change.

 

I am open to suggestions?

[flkin]

15 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

Hi Kin,

 

I think this only works because you are using the "real" HQPlayer for upsampling, as opposed to StylusEP's HQPlayer interface. Since I don't use HQPlayer, I can't verify this, but my likely explanation for this would be as follows.

• When you turn on HQPlayer upsampling, you activate an instance of HQPlayer on your PF2.16, which connects to the StylusEP player (aka gstp process).
• This combo of HQPlayer > StylusEP is now discoverable as an HQPlayer instance on the network.
• Locally, your path then becomes:
  • Stylus > HQPlayer > StylusEP
• Over on your Roon Core, it "sees" an HQPlayer instance on the machine "euphony" on the network. That path becomes:
  • Roon Core > HQPlayer > StylusEP

Unfortunately, this doesn't seem to work with "fake" HQPlayer - i.e. StylusEP with HQPlayer interface. This only seems to work with one server instance at a time: either Stylus or Roon Core. Coincidentally, I had sent an email to Željko asking for this functionality just last week. Great (or perhaps greedy?!) minds think alike.

 

 

Not surprising, since this is the benefit from caching and buffering that is implemented by the Stylus server.

 

 

Thanks for the explanation Rajiv. Since it already works in my setup, it might not be too difficult to implement your greedy request. 😄

 

With the right settings in HQP on the PF/Euphony side, the bypass filtering and upsampling technique works allowing me to only pass the music untouched through from Roon/StylusEP/HQP as a conduit as Željko intended. But it's not automatic, adjustments in HQP are required. This would be useful for those not interested to upsample.

 

If you do happen to suggest to Željko improvements to Euphony, can you consider these as well? :

 

- Displaying Tidal favourites sorted by date added

- Or better yet, a single screen displaying both local files and Tidal together, sorted by date added. That would almost replace Roon for me. 

- A more sticky sort (rather than rely on cookies on the browser as is his current technique I believe) that doesn't reset a few times per day

 

I made the suggestion about the Local Files + Tidal but he indicated it was difficult. Something to do with the functionality of control screens of local and Tidal files are different. I think this is one of Roon's strengths (compared with Stylus) in the way they integrate different music sources into one.

 

Perhaps your way with words will have a better effect than mine. 😄

 

 

[TheAttorney]

14 hours ago, Blake said:

Thanks, I just checked out the porcoolpine.  So DIY would be around $1,000 for the NUC and then buying the Euphony software for a total DIY of around $1,300?

 

The Summus may well have some extra tweaks (I don't know), but I wouldn't class the Porcoolpine route as "DIY".

My 7i7DN Porcoolpine arrived complete and fully working, including an Optane boot drive pre-installed with free ubuntu o/s. The only action required was to load Euphony s/w to overwrite ubuntu.

 

I also still use its included wifi card for all network access, which can probably be improved upon for SQ, but not for convenience.

So the only optional DIY aspect to this purchase was to replace the stock RAM with the better sounding Apacer, and that was trivial to replace.

[bobfa]

3 hours ago, TheAttorney said:

So the only optional DIY aspect to this purchase was to replace the stock RAM with the better sounding Apacer, and that was trivial to replace.

That is really cool.  Depending upon the power supply they shipped it might be better to upgrade that first...

[RickyV]

3 hours ago, TheAttorney said:

Apacer, and that was trivial to replace.

I thought you were satisfied with the Apacer ram sq upgrade, 70 euro for a clearly audible upgrade isn't not bad.

[bobfa]

5 minutes ago, RickyV said:

I thought you were satisfied with the Apacer ram sq upgrade, 70 euro for a clearly audible upgrade isn't not bad.

I did not upgrade RAM in my NUC only in the Xeon.  ECC RAM is a lot more than that.  Still it does make a difference.

 

 

[Middy]

I am glad i did with apacer DDR3. Maybe more detail than going fanless. Jumping up to 8G my usage went up from 3.5G to 5G??.

Be sensible with ram and mico electronics, its only a gentle push in and  2 clips but buy an ESD mat and wrist strap to a ground. Ground can be an old plug with one wire to earth.

I still think 2 ifi  i silencers helped but need more secondary evidence on other NUCs...

 

Dave

 

[TheAttorney]

3 hours ago, bobfa said:

That is really cool.  Depending upon the power supply they shipped it might be better to upgrade that first...

 

I forgot about the power supply because I already had a spare rail waiting on my PH SR7, so I didn't need to buy anything extra.

But yes, upgrading the power supply would indeed be the first thing to do.  The supplied one was the usual cheapo switching power supply, which was enough to get a flavour of what the NUC could do, but easily improved upon. This is a whole topic in itself.

 

3 hours ago, RickyV said:

I thought you were satisfied with the Apacer ram sq upgrade, 70 euro for a clearly audible upgrade isn't not bad.

 

I don't follow. I am indeed very happy with the Apacer RAM.

 

My only consideration at this point is that I went for just 4GB RAM, which was sufficient to run Stylus even in ramroot mode.

But now with the new queue buffer option, that is stretching what can practically be achieved:

4GB is still enough even for 200+ redbook tracks buffered into RAM, but with that amount queued, RAM usage gets to around/beyond 90% and that seems to impact SQ.

 

So now I'm thinking of getting a second 4GB (2400 speed) Apacer. Or spend quite a bit more to get the new 8GB 2666 Apacer, which apparently sounds better still.

 

[bobfa]

In the NUC I built last year I used 16GB of 2400 speed RAM I have not tried the temperature models.    

 

 

[RickyV]

36 minutes ago, TheAttorney said:

 

I forgot about the power supply because I already had a spare rail waiting on my PH SR7, so I didn't need to buy anything extra.

But yes, upgrading the power supply would indeed be the first thing to do.  The supplied one was the usual cheapo switching power supply, which was enough to get a flavour of what the NUC could do, but easily improved upon. This is a whole topic in itself.

 

 

I don't follow. I am indeed very happy with the Apacer RAM.

 

My only consideration at this point is that I went for just 4GB RAM, which was sufficient to run Stylus even in ramroot mode.

But now with the new queue buffer option, that is stretching what can practically be achieved:

4GB is still enough even for 200+ redbook tracks buffered into RAM, but with that amount queued, RAM usage gets to around/beyond 90% and that seems to impact SQ.

 

So now I'm thinking of getting a second 4GB (2400 speed) Apacer. Or spend quite a bit more to get the new 8GB 2666 Apacer, which apparently sounds better still.

 

whoops sorry now that I am reading the last sentence back of post 1035 I see that I misunderstood. 
 

What new Apacer ram would that be and can we buy it somewhere. It’s a pity this industrial ram is hard to get.

[elan120]

10 minutes ago, RickyV said:

What new Apacer ram would that be and can we buy it somewhere. It’s a pity this industrial ram is hard to get.

The latest I use in my NUC is Apacer D21.23180S.001 DDR4 4GB SODIMM 2666 CL19 WT.  I think this is the "newest" model available to date.

[TheAttorney]

And for non-NUC users. whose motherboards support ECC (typically those intended for server, rather than consumer, use), then they can use the ECC version of this RAM, which some have said is a bit better still.

 

ECC RAM:   

D31.23185S.001  DDR4 4GB ECC UDIMM 2666 CL19 WT

[fajita]

On 2/24/2020 at 8:13 PM, bobfa said:

Actually I doubt it is linux.  I am betting on some other items.

 

I would shut down the whole network first.

 

I would startup the linux machine clean, new install.  I would make sure it works with Stylus first.

 

I would then swap over to Roon and create a new test/demo account.  That gives you a couple of weeks to test and does not effect your existing system at all.

 

Then when we can debug from there.

 

Bob

 

 

Bob, you are very gracious, and I will accept any help I can get.  I will tell you that I have both someone from Roon willing to run diagnostics on the machine and Željko from Euphony offering to remote in and have a look at some point.

 

To update you nonethless, I have been at this for around 3 months.  The network has been reset several times, switches replaced, and ethernet cable from main switch to the Euphony machine running Roon Server replaced.  Fresh install with a fresh download of Euphony OS 2 weeks ago, still with occasional hangs.  Has been running Stylus with Roon Server off for 4 days without a hiccup, which is far more than when running Roon Server.

 

The Roon demo account is an interesting idea that I have not tried yet.  I will try to do this next.

 

I discovered an item in my BIOS that was on which, in Windows anyway, installs an Asus update service that is annoying.  I doubt this would have been the culprit, but I have turned that off and am now running Euphony directly off of the USB stick with Roon Server enabled just to see.

[fajita]

23 hours ago, flkin said:

Try unplugging the lan cable from your streamer when it is resting and see if that helps. It did for me. 

 

By help, do you mean that the issue resolved?  I have made some changes, as above, and am awaiting the next crash.  I will try this thereafter.

[flkin]

4 hours ago, fajita said:

 

By help, do you mean that the issue resolved?  I have made some changes, as above, and am awaiting the next crash.  I will try this thereafter.

No, the issue isn’t resolved with Roon on AudioLinux or Euphony on my streamer. I’ve switched to using mostly Stylus and it seems stable. 
 

But one way I managed to get a Roon stable over many days was to unplug the LAN cable from the streamer. It’s a workaround and might give you further clues about why this occurs. I’m not following this issue anymore. 
 

Another clue, Roon in my SonicTransporter doesn’t hang and I believe the OS is a form of Linux? 

[adamaley]

I just downloaded and tested Euphony tonight, and I'm pleasantly surprised by the significant uptick in sonics. Funny thing is, I was very disappointed with what I was hearing, and it wasn't until I did the registration and plugged my registration code into Euphony that everything clicked into sonic gear. Did anyone notice this feature, or am I deluded?

[sjj]

Has anyone tried using Euphony UPnP to a allo USBridge as an endpoint running Moode with UPnP? If so what was the result?

[davide256]

12 hours ago, fajita said:

 

Bob, you are very gracious, and I will accept any help I can get.  I will tell you that I have both someone from Roon willing to run diagnostics on the machine and Željko from Euphony offering to remote in and have a look at some point.

 

To update you nonethless, I have been at this for around 3 months.  The network has been reset several times, switches replaced, and ethernet cable from main switch to the Euphony machine running Roon Server replaced.  Fresh install with a fresh download of Euphony OS 2 weeks ago, still with occasional hangs.  Has been running Stylus with Roon Server off for 4 days without a hiccup, which is far more than when running Roon Server.

 

The Roon demo account is an interesting idea that I have not tried yet.  I will try to do this next.

 

I discovered an item in my BIOS that was on which, in Windows anyway, installs an Asus update service that is annoying.  I doubt this would have been the culprit, but I have turned that off and am now running Euphony directly off of the USB stick with Roon Server enabled just to see.

The hang is mostly likely a network caused phenomena. If you are using the mac as server it really should be a wired connection.