Euphony OS w/Stylus player setup and issues thread

[davide256]

FWIW I am seeing that HQPlayer current track is buffered to RAM with Stylus and Qobuz but it buffers slowly, like watching paint dry and the next track is never buffered

by end of current track. Moving the port from FE to GigE on Etheregen speeds up Stylus w/o HQPlayer to reasonable buffering speed,  HQplayer

buffering speed improves modestly. Has me wondering if this is a network delay issue  or do others get  same slow buffering performance using Stylus/HQplayer/Qobuz?

 

 

 

 

 

[davide256]

Nevermind... switched the NUC to WIFI and buffer speed is much better. Looks like my POE connection to router has problems

[davide256]

think I've finally found a reason to keep my Roon subscription. I like using HQPlayer's DSD upsampling with Stylus but it wasn't as clean as I wanted for harmonic

integrity/digital irritants. Getting better results now by using DSD up sampling in a separate Roon server and streaming it using HQPlayer protocol to the Euphony

i7NUC running Stylus EP. Might even move the NUC into the fanless Turing case I have.... fried the previous resident doing local DSD upsampling with HQPlayer

[davide256]

On 12/13/2020 at 11:44 PM, 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.  

Optane is fast to boot and convenient but too small to use as a media drive. When you license Euphony it will allow you to install to any drive in the NUC, just make sure the M.2 slot is enabled

[davide256]

36 minutes ago, WilliamWykeham said:

 

OK all set. What I did not understand is that you have to buy the Euphony license first and then you can load to Optane.  Getting Optane set up was confusing because I had to go into bios, enable SATA, enable Optane and then select “not RST controlled” for RAID support.  I write this down here for other non-technical people like me.  

 

I’m finding that I can’t upsample to DSD 256 Asdm7ec with Euphony, even though I can upsample to this setting with windows.    Euphony still giving me better SQ though.  

Euphonys thing isn't upsampling, it works so so but using HQPlayer embedded does it much better... at additional cost. You can used the embedded HQPlayer

functionality with Stylus for 30 minutes without license, give that a try and see what you find/like. Just navigate to

 

settings > music service > audio outputs

 

to enable HQPlayer.

 

Buffer can be pretty slow, HQPlayer doesn't behave well if buffering is not complete for track play so be sure to allow enough tracks to complete buffering before you start play to avoid overrunning buffer progress... I always lose right channel when that happens.

[davide256]

15 hours ago, Lukasluis said:

What If I connect an external HDD or Memory card as my music source and connect a keyboard and monitor to the PC? Will that sound better than having a network card? 

awful idea unless you have the engineering skills and material resources of Aurender or Innuos. Stock MOBO inputs for SDXC, SATA and M.2 NVMe

compromise audio quality vs buffering same over Ethernet from NAS or streaming service.  Optane drive works well but is cost prohibitive.

Connecting media by USB doesn't change this.

[davide256]

21 hours ago, Lukasluis said:

I compared Euphony's SQ using same copy of music stored on NAS (powered by LPS) vs same Music stored on external HDD (USB3 cable connected to HDD Docking Station using iFi iPurifier3, docking powered by LPS). I prefer the SQ of the latter. 

sounds like something in your audio chain is compromising the midrange... tone color density, dynamics and background instrument separation should be

better with NAS. There are devices that call themselves a NAS but aren't worthy of the name. I had a Buffalo NAS once, it was terrible sounding

compared to using Synology NAS, all streamed music sound squashed and lifeless. Since you don't post a system, hard to know whats coloring your sound.

 

[davide256]

On 1/11/2021 at 1:47 PM, Dev said:

 

I am using a DIY SJ DC3 with a separate 12v rail for the CPU EPS.

 

I should have written some more details - it boots fine from USB with both HT and Turbo enabled. As soon as I install it on the Optane drive and boot off it, I start seeing this issue.

 

My previous build was a Xeon E-2278G which Turbos to 5Ghz and the same power supply works fine.

 

Thinking it could be an Optane issue, I tried different Optane but landed up in the same issue. For experiment I installed Roon Rock on Optane and it works just fine. On a side note, I haven't tried Rock in a while and listening to it this weekend and found to actually sound very very good - better than Euphony in my setup.  

 

To top this over, Euphony support, for the first time has been very disappointing...after finger pointing and going back and forth, they clearly told me that they have no desire to solve this and closed the ticket...Sigh!
 

I doubt a DC3 has the amperage for your setup. Do you have a PS with higher amperage to determine whether more current eliminates the issue?

[davide256]

6 hours ago, maxst67 said:

Hi everyone, in my pc configuration I have the music files in an ssd connected with a sata cable, many users claim to hear consistent improvements using sata cables like jcat etc, but the question is: in the case of Euphony using the ramroot it makes sense spend the money on a high quality sata cable or would it be better to install a ram such as Apacer ECC instead? eventually considering the maximum resolution of my files and 128 DSD what ram size do you recommend? thank you so much

the minimum amount of RAM I'd suggest is the amount that will let you use ramroot + fully buffer a typical DSD album of the rate you play. I haven't had any issues

with 16 GB so far but if I played opera at DSD rates I suppose more could be needed...

 

[davide256]

deleted

[davide256]

On 1/17/2021 at 9:47 AM, biosailor said:

 

You're spot on: I inspected Duke Jordan's eight track album 'Flight to Jordan' with kid3 tagger. It appears that track 1 has a line with the 'Composer', whereas tracks 2-8 lack the entry of the composer.

 

So I nee3d to re-tag quite a few albums!

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can compare and edit within stylus, see screen below. Changes can be saved with local database or at source location. Just check the pencil box

for what you want to edit

 

 

[davide256]

7 hours ago, biosailor said:

Thanks, Will try.

 

After having a good look at my albums, I must say I need to re-tag man. I swapped them a lot between computers and tagging softwares, no wonder they got messed up. I‘m surprised I see nothing of this in Roon.

Roon reminds me of the old AOL dialer, you know the one they called “the internet on training wheels”... there’s some good user error proofing in how it organizes music

[davide256]

21 hours ago, dminches said:

Is it possible to register your HQ Player license for Euphony if you have an existing license?  I have a license for 4.x.  The Euphony process seems to imply that you are getting a license to use in Euphony.  Maybe I need to get an embedded license.

 

 

 

Yup. The stand alone license is different. You could contact them first to see if your license could be converted, as I recall the price was the same.

[davide256]

5 hours ago, walloon said:

Questions for the folks using Roon with Euphony.

 

I have a licence for Euphony and I'm really happy with the sound however, the library management is very basic. Therefore, I have started to test Roon using the 14 days trial.

 

I started by selecting "Roon core" only in Euphony. Roon library management is very impressive!!! I understand that with "Roon core" selected in Euphony, the audio system management is done by Roon and stylus is not involved. The main benefit vs a Roon only machine is the Euphony OS which is optimized for audio. Is it correct?

 

As I'd like to use Stylus to manage my DAC, I tried Roon core + Stylus EP. It didn't work at first and I found out that HQ Player must be enabled in Euphony with this config! Went back to Stylus mode, enabled HQ Player, back to "Roon core + Stylus EP" and it now works. However, I don't have an HQ Player licence. Is it an issue since I don't oversample, I only checked the HQ Player tick box?

 

So what do you guys recommend, "Roon core" only or "Roon core + Stylus EP" (without HQ Player licence)?

 

Any other tips will be appreciated.

 

My system is NUC7i5 - 8GB RAM - SSD 120GB - Akasa Fanless with Mytek Brooklyn DAC+

 

Thanks

There can be device contention issues if you run Rooncore + Stylus EP on same box... both want to "own" an attached USB DAC device . I've had to completely

reboot when changing from Rooncore to Rooncore +Stylus EP. HQPlayer attaches by a different solution.

 

My best sound with  Euphony+ Roon core was using HQPlayer endpoint with HQPlayer doing DSD128 upsampling. But you will need a license else

HQPlayer trial times out after 30 minutes and you will have to periodically restart Euphony application to re-enable.

 

Running Rooncore + Stylus EP on same Euphony installation created more problems than it solved for me vs just Roon core.

 

Highly recommend that you try using a NAS vs the local SSD for media storage... internal/external attached drives inject irritants into playback,

buffering doesn't make that go away.

[davide256]

5 hours ago, biosailor said:

So, in regards to buffering, once that option is ticked, does this also hold for Euphony running Roon Core? There's this discussion over at Roon Labs Community asking for implementation of buffering tracks before playing them, just as Audirvana does.

 

Also, has anyone compared SQ between Stylus and Euphony running Roon Core? Is there an audible difference?

Buffering only seems to happen when Stylus is the active server.  I didn't renew Roon this year, it didn't match the clarity and midrange timbre integrity of Stylus

under A/B comparison using Euphony, found the only time I was using Roon was if I was curious about discography and related music

[davide256]

13 hours ago, Chopin75 said:

THe 100% into memory I think you mean the 100%. buffer. ? It loads a single track entirely before playback. The Buffer queue loads entire album(s) to the RAM before being played. 100% buffer appears most important, recommended to use at all times unless u have very little RAM to work on.  The   Buffer. queue I. find only. useful for huge files, like. DSD/DXD. It means while you play the entire album, there won't be further loading of files into the RAM. ssh can improve the. sound. I does make a. little difference but for small files like PCM 24/96, not really a lot of difference. It is a nice feature so u feel better psychologically, haha. BTW, you need good quality RAM chips to do anything like this as. the RAM becomes more important, esp if you run RAMroot. ON crappy RAM, the RAMroot mode sounds worse or not any better,  

Still trying to get some Apacer RAM for NUC8i7 to replace the Crucial memory I have but looks like COVID has shut down shipments to US?  Only seems to show up

in weird places where I don't trust shippers/customs.

[davide256]

On 1/31/2021 at 8:28 AM, biosailor said:

So they should gear up to make UPnP work properly!

Agree. I can't get UPNP under Stylus to work with an Oppo103 as endpoint

[davide256]

 

Željko reached out to me the other day and my Oppo 103 is now working with Stylus UPNP. Looks like some additional UI options are needed

with UPNP to allow matching the endpoint  limitations (conversion needs) for speed, bit depth and whether DSD is supported.

 

 

[davide256]

Really depends on the quality of your power supply...  start with low power settings to reduce noise generation from mother board  components and then compare/contrast by enabling faster operation options until you hear a negative result.

[davide256]

Playing around now with UPNP streaming to the Oppo 103 from Stylus. I've moved the Stylus server to a GigE port on the EtherRegen and connected

the Oppo to the "moated" FE port, using coax over AQ Eagle eye to a Mojo. Dynamics, transients, and tone color are good but I'm having an issue with

songs terminating in the middle, abruptly switching to next song, encountered same last night using wifi with Stylus on the FE port of the Regen.

Really like what I'm hearing, no digital nasties with the Oppo coax out but not the same detail resolution of going USB from server to DAC,

much better sound then when I used UPNP in the past

 

[davide256]

It looks like Stylus is assuming that play starts when it sends to the UPNP renderer.. there is a variable delay between when stylus starts the song “timer” bar and when play actually starts. What seems to be happening is that stylus jumps to next track without any allowance/check for that delay when the song timer finishes @Cebolla would you mind commenting on how does UPNP normally handshake to deal with renderer start delay?

[davide256]

11 hours ago, davide256 said:

It looks like Stylus is assuming that play starts when it sends to the UPNP renderer.. there is a variable delay between when stylus starts the song “timer” bar and when play actually starts. What seems to be happening is that stylus jumps to next track without any allowance/check for that delay when the song timer finishes @Cebolla would you mind commenting on how does UPNP normally handshake to deal with renderer start delay?

I’ve found a workaround. Setting song position update to never allows songs to play completely with UPNP

[davide256]

3 hours ago, Speedy381 said:

• I have just had an odd experience; I have been using my NUC i7 with good RAM, Optane card running Euphony, powered by a Farad 3 PS. So a pretty well sorted front end, if not full exotic then decently middle range. My source up to now has been my library on external hard drive, self powered USB. I found an appreciable difference with network isolation and ran a Cisco switch for a while, until firewall issues caused me to go back to an old Netgear. Tidal is not at the quality of my own library, and Roon piped from an Imac on the system is also unrewarding in a different way, using the same external HD as library. I cannot implement Roon fully on Euphony as the Optane card is not big enough and the library filled it, necessitating a full new install. 
• So, here's the issue; I was about to purchase a Synology NAS for use primarily as a music library, but also for other household/security things that I can actually do without but if I have one I will implement. At present I have an HP running WHS that has a backup library (was primary), so I set the music source as that in Euphony for proof of concept re sound quality of served FLAC files. The resulting sound is thin and uninvolving, despite buffering and isolating the network. I had actually forgotten I had switched source and was reading in the earlier part of the evening, writing off the lack of emotion in the music to one of those nights, then I turned my attention fully to the music and the volume went up but did not deliver. The penny dropped then as to the change of library.
• Can it be that internal noise in the HP server is somehow contaminating the files? The switch is robbing the bass? Re the latter, Tidal still has plenty of presence, if not ultimate fidelity etc. so maybe not that. Unless a more powerful NAS has less internal noise (possible), then those times I have been unimpressed with shop system centrally served could be just down to source? I realise companies such as Antipodes advise against served files and use internally mounted drives, but that requires very clever power supplies to isolate from the processor etc.
• How are your files served? Has anyone noted a dramatic difference between sources? At present I am sticking to a USB external drive, unless anyone has a better solution for an NUC implementation.

I've used a Buffalo NAS and a PC as music file server... they sucked, pretty lifeless. And i really wanted local storage in Euphony to be best... but the DS214Play NAS

I have continues to be far more convincing for mid range tone color purity and reduction of digital artifacts. My last try to supplant the NAS, a local M.2 NVME drive

didn't even last 24 hours in the Euphony server before I gave up and went back to NAS.

 

[davide256]

1 hour ago, Speedy381 said:

That is heartening that you have had the same results. I don't feel quite so crazy now. Although I have to wonder whether the whole Synology range is the same as the 214 for sound. 

I suspect that as long as the processer is intel based only the library scan time will vary. 

[davide256]

On 2/16/2021 at 7:43 PM, Mike Rubin said:

This is a basic question that probably is answered in this 75 page thread, but I was confused by something that I perceived to be a conflict between the Euphony website and the user grid.  If I were to try Euphony, it would be installed on a NUC and used to stream from a NAS to Sonore rendus over ethernet rather than over the NUC's USB bus to a connected DAC.  The Euphony site says it requires a DAC connected by USB but the user guide tosses off a reference to enabling upnp without really articulating the use case.  So, can Euphony be used to stream to a upnp device or must it be connected to the DAC by USB cable?

Looks like your UPNP question has been answered. A related question for all to consider

 

When I first encountered AL and Euphony I owned a microRendu. The only side by side comparison I could do for endpoints was running Rooncore to Roonbridge

on the microrendu and Stylus endpoint on a Pentium NUC. Stylus endpoint on the NUC turned out to be superior and UPNP streaming from Stylus server

wasn't an option then. I sold the MR and moved on to a 2 NUC solution for a while, then  was able to collapse it to a 1 NUC solution when I acquired a JS-2.

 

Since then I've reached the conclusion that Rooncore isn't equal to Stylus server in SQ, so am wondering how Stylus server to Stylus endpoint stacks up against

Stylus server to UPNP endpoint, whether a purpose built device like the xRendu family can compete. Would love to see any comparisons of Stylus server to

Stylus endpoint devices vs UPNP with xRendu devices.