Euphony OS w/Stylus player setup and issues thread

[organics1]

8 hours ago, aangen said:

organics1, did you ever mention where and how you have your music files stored?

I had a thought that you might possibly be using an external USB drive for storage as well as using USB for output to your DAC. If that were true I had a hunch it may be an issue.

All the music is stored on the internal 500GB mSATA SSD, which also holds the Euphony OS.

Now you've got me thinking about the connection between the DAC and the Computer (especially since support mentioned that logs showed a temporary loss of contact between the two). I'm using an iFi Purifier 2, and an iFi mercury USB cable. Though I can't think of a reason why, could the Purifier be causing problems?

[aangen]

There is a very easy way to find out. 

[organics1]

54 minutes ago, aangen said:

There is a very easy way to find out. 

😄

[TheAttorney]

Regarding CPU loading by the Web App, the latest March release includes an option to "Optimize UI performance" (in Settings->Music Service". This stops the track play progress displays from being constantly updated. And it does indeed improve Web App CPU usage:

 

On W10, Edge and Firefox are now much the same in the steady state case of playing a music file - both result in a very low total system CPU load of around 3%, and minimising the window has minimal effect. And my Android smartphone's battery doesn't seem to discharge anywhere near as quickly as before, although this is harder to measure objectively. Incidentally. I find I'm using my phone as control app much more these days - the weight/size convenience often outweighing the screen size limitation.

 

The obvious downside of this new option is that there is absolutely no visible indication of track progress - you have to actually listen to the music to know that it's being played 🙂. But at least you can still skip to different parts of the file by clicking/touching the static progress bar.

 

[Middy]

No issues with my phone S8, on wifi going through a browser like chrome was a non starter i thought my WIFI was broken. The Euphony APP perfect...

 

Keep safe all and keep posting 

Good luck

Dave

[organics1]

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?

[aangen]

I can't imagine how it would be useful to you if you are already having issues with skipping and drops.

[austinpop]

48 minutes 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?

 

Never used it, or found a need for it. 

[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".

[Dev]

36 minutes ago, Nenon said:

 

 

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".

 

with new builds I usually do these kind of stress test for couple of days just to make sure things all working as expected. Apart from the CPU, I find the memtest86 is an excellent tool to test the memory. The burn-in when using these tools comes as a bonus 👍

[Middy]

Just ensure your temps are in the safe zone with any stress testing programs.

Over clockers have used them for  years for GPU CPU testing. With a poorly fitted heatsink not the best.  Id just leave it on with the sound off...

[organics1]

15 hours ago, Nenon said:

 

 

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".

Much obliged! Just the kind of expert explainer I was looking for.

[organics1]

16 hours ago, aangen said:

I can't imagine how it would be useful to you if you are already having issues with skipping and drops.

About all those skipping songs...

When I couldn't figure it out I decided I'd park Euphony and come back in a month or two when I've bought a possibly more competent i7 machine. I erased the drive and re-instaled my trusty Daphile, cuz I gotta have music. Then, when you suggested a couple of things I installed Euphony on a spare SSD a few days back and gave it another try. Out of superstition 😁, I was going to keep my mouth shut for a week or so until I was getting reliable performance. So, okay, she's purring like a kitten. Right now, at least. Possible reasons...a) there has been an update, maybe two, since my fist install; b) the new SSD is half the size, at 250GB, and, I've only put about 50GB of music on it; and c) I'm also playing from an external 240GB SSD. Could that be a factor?

So far, no problems, even when playing huge DSD songs. I've pulled up the temp/PCU/RAM monitor while I've listened to entire albums of various sizes, from low to high volumes. Even with the biggest DSD's the highest memory utlization was around 47% (of my 4GB). Core usage remained relatively low throughout most songs, and only once did anything look strange, and that was at the beginning of one of the songs on a DSD version of the Phoebe Snow album when cores "0" & "1" absolutely red-lined for about 2 seconds, and returned to a very low state. 

On average, memory usage ranges between 21 and 36%, even on big files like the David Elias "The Window," in DSD512.

Go figure.

[adamaley]

So, I've come to the end of my 30 day Euphony trial period, and I've just purchased a permanent licence. 

 

Since I'm now tethered to Euphony for good, I'd like help on the one thing that's been bothering me. Each time I bypass booting into the Euphony OS in order to perform some tasks in Windows, when I get back into Euphony and connect to Roon, all my settings are missing. I need to reconnect my NAS drive, and have Roon import all files. I also need to reconnect to Qobuz and Tidal. Having to do this everytime is tedious. 

 

I'm wondering if this is normal functioning of the OS, am I missing something, or is there a workaround?

[ASRMichael]

28 minutes ago, adamaley said:

So, I've come to the end of my 30 day Euphony trial period, and I've just purchased a permanent licence. 

 

Since I'm now tethered to Euphony for good, I'd like help on the one thing that's been bothering me. Each time I bypass booting into the Euphony OS in order to perform some tasks in Windows, when I get back into Euphony and connect to Roon, all my settings are missing. I need to reconnect my NAS drive, and have Roon import all files. I also need to reconnect to Qobuz and Tidal. Having to do this everytime is tedious. 

 

I'm wondering if this is normal functioning of the OS, am I missing something, or is there a workaround?

Hi, are you using Ramroot? I had this when I was using Roon. Each time Euphony was rebooted had to restore Roon’s backup file.

 

I cancelled my Roon due to SQ, I’ve been using Euphony media player for 3 months now, I’m very happy with that. 

[davide256]

7 hours ago, ASRMichael said:

Hi, are you using Ramroot? I had this when I was using Roon. Each time Euphony was rebooted had to restore Roon’s backup file.

 

I cancelled my Roon due to SQ, I’ve been using Euphony media player for 3 months now, I’m very happy with that. 

@adamaley I see the same thing trying to run Roon in RAM, not an issue in normal mode. But Euphony Stylus server resolves better so I only use Roon now

when I want to experiment or am curious about album/composer information. If your machine supports an Optane drive, thats a better route than running in RAM

[Jeff Mann]

I am new to online streaming and I have only been using Qobuz for about 8 months. Because I am not computer-savvy, I could not personally assemble a high-end computer system and I have been using a Euphony PTS unit as my music server.

 

My audio system is as follows -: Euphony PTS (powered with a Keces P3 LPS unit) => Wyred-4-Sound 2v2SE 10th Anniversary Limited Edition DAC (connected via either the USB port or via a Matrix X-SPDIF unit using the I2s connection) => Niimbus US4+ headphone amplifier => HiFiMan Susvara headphones.

 

What I have discovered is that the sound quality of my headphone-based system using the Euphony PTS as the music source is not as good as when I use a CD-transport (PS Audio PWT or Jays Audio CD2Mk2) ) as my music source, and I only use the Euphony PTS unit to explore new recordings on Qobuz, and I never use it for serious music listening pleasure because I much prefer the sound quality when I use my CD-transport as the music source. I have often wondered why I cannot obtain a satisfactory sound quality using my Euphony PTS unit, and I have presumed that the cause was due to the fact that I didn't have a high-end computer (as described by many forum members) in this thread, but I now have a new theory to explain why I cannot get a satisfactory sound quality from my Euphony PTS unit.

 

Here is my theory. I noted that Rajiv Arora (AustinPop) did a review of the UpTone Audio EtherREG unit and he discovered that it significantly improved the sound quality of his audio system by a clearly discernible amount - even though he obviously already had assembled a maxed-out computer system. Let's presume that the sound quality of his optimized computer system using the Euphony software is "X". That means that the sound quality using the UpTone Audio EtherREG in his system must be X + Y where "Y" is the amount of easily discernible sound quality improvement that he obtained from the UpTone Audio EtherREGEN unit. He then obtained even better sound quality when adding a LPS unit to power his UpTone Audio EtherREGEN unit and when he also used a Mutec Ref-10- reference clock. Let's presume that the two additional factors improved the sound quality by a factor of "Z" so that the sound quality was then equal to X + Y + Z. That's not the end of the story because he could obtain even better sound quality by using two ethernet switches in series, and we can infer that it improved his audio system's sound quality by a clearly discernible amount of "W" so that his final best sound quality was X + Y + Z + W. Although I cannot personally quantify the finite value of the combination of "Y + Z + W", it seems to be a significant amount. That unknown amount of "Y + Z + W" indicates to me that simply using a music server to access Qobuz via the internet using a modem => Euphony PTS music server is significantly deficient and that could explain why I cannot get a satisfactory  sound quality (especially in terms of many aspects of soundstaging quality - especially soundstaging depth, image focus, image tonal density/saturation and "air" between instruments) compared to my CD-transport, which presumably is not handicapped by phase-noise and many other potential problems related to internet streaming.

 

What do you think of my theory?

 

Jeff.

[adamaley]

11 hours ago, ASRMichael said:

Hi, are you using Ramroot? I had this when I was using Roon. Each time Euphony was rebooted had to restore Roon’s backup file.

 

I cancelled my Roon due to SQ, I’ve been using Euphony media player for 3 months now, I’m very happy with that. 

Thanks for the response. Yes, I am using ramroot. I can experiment with not doing so and see if it solves the issue once I reboot. 

[adamaley]

3 hours ago, davide256 said:

@adamaley I see the same thing trying to run Roon in RAM, not an issue in normal mode. But Euphony Stylus server resolves better so I only use Roon now

when I want to experiment or am curious about album/composer information. If your machine supports an Optane drive, thats a better route than running in RAM

Unfortunately, my Roon core are separate. My server/core is a PC in a separate room from my endpoint, which is an ultraRendu, so it precludes me from using Stylus as a player and I need to stick with Roon for now (based on my understanding of how Euphony works.) I am currently working on building a new server which will replace my PC (server/Roon core) and ultraRendu(endpoint), and be directly connected to my DAC.

[ASRMichael]

3 hours ago, Jeff Mann said:

I am new to online streaming and I have only been using Qobuz for about 8 months. Because I am not computer-savvy, I could not personally assemble a high-end computer system and I have been using a Euphony PTS unit as my music server.

 

My audio system is as follows -: Euphony PTS (powered with a Keces P3 LPS unit) => Wyred-4-Sound 2v2SE 10th Anniversary Limited Edition DAC (connected via either the USB port or via a Matrix X-SPDIF unit using the I2s connection) => Niimbus US4+ headphone amplifier => HiFiMan Susvara headphones.

 

What I have discovered is that the sound quality of my headphone-based system using the Euphony PTS as the music source is not as good as when I use a CD-transport (PS Audio PWT or Jays Audio CD2Mk2) ) as my music source, and I only use the Euphony PTS unit to explore new recordings on Qobuz, and I never use it for serious music listening pleasure because I much prefer the sound quality when I use my CD-transport as the music source. I have often wondered why I cannot obtain a satisfactory sound quality using my Euphony PTS unit, and I have presumed that the cause was due to the fact that I didn't have a high-end computer (as described by many forum members) in this thread, but I now have a new theory to explain why I cannot get a satisfactory sound quality from my Euphony PTS unit.

 

Here is my theory. I noted that Rajiv Arora (AustinPop) did a review of the UpTone Audio EtherREG unit and he discovered that it significantly improved the sound quality of his audio system by a clearly discernible amount - even though he obviously already had assembled a maxed-out computer system. Let's presume that the sound quality of his optimized computer system using the Euphony software is "X". That means that the sound quality using the UpTone Audio EtherREG in his system must be X + Y where "Y" is the amount of easily discernible sound quality improvement that he obtained from the UpTone Audio EtherREGEN unit. He then obtained even better sound quality when adding a LPS unit to power his UpTone Audio EtherREGEN unit and when he also used a Mutec Ref-10- reference clock. Let's presume that the two additional factors improved the sound quality by a factor of "Z" so that the sound quality was then equal to X + Y + Z. That's not the end of the story because he could obtain even better sound quality by using two ethernet switches in series, and we can infer that it improved his audio system's sound quality by a clearly discernible amount of "W" so that his final best sound quality was X + Y + Z + W. Although I cannot personally quantify the finite value of the combination of "Y + Z + W", it seems to be a significant amount. That unknown amount of "Y + Z + W" indicates to me that simply using a music server to access Qobuz via the internet using a modem => Euphony PTS music server is significantly deficient and that could explain why I cannot get a satisfactory  sound quality (especially in terms of many aspects of soundstaging quality - especially soundstaging depth, image focus, image tonal density/saturation and "air" between instruments) compared to my CD-transport, which presumably is not handicapped by phase-noise and many other potential problems related to internet streaming.

 

What do you think of my theory?

 

Jeff.

Jeff from my experience. I moved away from records over a year ago. I bought a high end DAC, I thought that’s all I needed (i was wrong). I quickly realised ever part in the digital chain matters. Especially the server.
 

I’m at the end of my journey now. Have a look at my system. It took a lot of time, afford & money but worth it in the end.

[aangen]

My Jays Audio CD2-MK2 sounds pretty much the same as my PTS feeding into my PS Audio DSD via a Matrix with Wireworld Platinum Starlight 7 USB and HDMI cables. I just recently added an EtherREGEN which I power from my Keces P8. It does not make my system sound worse, I am certain of that. Now I am starting to favor driving my Bridge 2 card with the EtherREGEN. What I do not understand is why your PTS doesn’t sound as good as the transport. Interconnects? Where is your music stored?

[Jeff Mann]

42 minutes ago, aangen said:

My Jays Audio CD2-MK2 sounds pretty much the same as my PTS feeding into my PS Audio DSD via a Matrix with Wireworld Platinum Starlight 7 USB and HDMI cables. I just recently added an EtherREGEN which I power from my Keces P8. It does not make my system sound worse, I am certain of that. Now I am starting to favor driving my Bridge 2 card with the EtherREGEN. What I do not understand is why your PTS doesn’t sound as good as the transport. Interconnects? Where is your music stored?

I am using Blue Jeans HDMI interconnects, which are obviously not as good as your Wireworld Platinum 7 interconnects, but I am using the same Blue Jeans interconnects for my CD-transports and I am happy with the sound quality when I use my CD-player as a musical sound source. My limited number of music FLAC files music are stored in the Euphony PTS unit, although I obviously stream Qobuz.

 

You stated that the EtherREGEN does not make your sound quality worse. However, does it significantly improve the sound of your Euphony PTS unit in the manner AustinPop described in his review?

 

Jeff.

[aangen]

It makes my system sound better, yes. Is it as noticeable as the change from a Silver Starlight hdmi cable to a Platinum Starlight hdmi cable? About the same amount of improvement. I appreciate it, and I am glad I have it. Is it worth the trouble? For me it is.

I am guessing I bought my CD2-MK2 after reading your comments on the PS Audio forum. When I first listened to it I thought damn, this does sound better than the PTS. But then I played the same track on the PTS and to me it sounded as good.

 

I have no regrets, I love the CD2-MK2. I just do not understand why your PTS isn’t doing it for you. There can’t be that much difference between power from your P3 vs. power from my P8. Maybe it is the cables. Blue Jean cables are held in high regard so I am not sure what the deal is. 
 

I stream through my PTS using Roon, Qobuz and Tidal. I also have 1.5 TB of flac files stored on an internal Samsung SSD. (A no no around here) Streaming sounds wonderful, as do the Flac files. Curious......

 

I am not confident the EtherREGEN is a cure for your situation. One way to find out though. But remember you will need yet another power supply and upgrade cables. 

[HeeBroG]

16 hours ago, Jeff Mann said:

What I have discovered is that the sound quality of my headphone-based system using the Euphony PTS as the music source is not as good as when I use a CD-transport (PS Audio PWT or Jays Audio CD2Mk2) ) as my music source, and I only use the Euphony PTS unit to explore new recordings on Qobuz, and I never use it for serious music listening pleasure because I much prefer the sound quality when I use my CD-transport as the music source. I have often wondered why I cannot obtain a satisfactory sound quality using my Euphony PTS unit, and I have presumed that the cause was due to the fact that I didn't have a high-end computer (as described by many forum members) in this thread, but I now have a new theory to explain why I cannot get a satisfactory sound quality from my Euphony PTS unit.

 

 

You don't seem to be making a fair comparison by my reading.

Why don't you try and rip a CD and play the files on the internal storage of your Euphony PTS?

You might get a nice surprise.

If you do find local file playback on Euphony PTS better than Qobuz, you may need to improve your network (ERgen/fibreoptic etc.)

 

[Chopin75]

Does anyone notice that if you disconnect the ethernet cable form the server/PC where the euphony is, the sound is improved? I am using single box so the entire Euphony/music files are all in the single box and ethernet is only used to control the Euphony remotely.  

Would wireless control be better or worse ?