Euphony OS w/Stylus player setup and issues thread

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10 hours ago, NanoSword said:

I am interested to know the answer .

 

10 hours ago, Smaragdhk said:

Would like to know as well… 

 

PM sent

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2 hours ago, di-fi said:

While waiting for an update, I wonder if it could be beneficial for you and your wonderful setup to try JPLAY femto /WIN10 and compare to Euphony OS? Anwar and lukasluis made convincing claims (starting September 20 in this thread) this will beat Euphony in sound quality. 

 

Hey Paul, yes Anwar reached out and said the same to me. It's on my todo list already but having just completed a major hardware switch, I'm trying to get in some listening time first to rediscover my music collection. 😄  It's a cliche but its so true that once you get a good step forward, old albums sound totally different, almost a new experience again.  

 

I'm also wondering how to try - I gather it's a more complicated setup having to install a specific version of Win10, adjust it manually (or load optimiser programs like Fidelizer or/and AO) and then install JPLAY. And whether it's best installed onto a separate drive from Euphony since the Euphony boot drive has a few partitions already?

 

If someone here has a simple step by step guide for the JPLAY installation that would be great as a reference.

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Try doing a reload page in settings. When you see anything unusual in Euphony, the reload page often solves it.

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4 hours ago, Marcin_gps said:

Here you you: http://jplay.eu/ml_post_slider/getting-started-with-jplay-femto/

 

Marcin

Thank you for the link. I meant to say the complete installation from a new PC including the correct version of Windows Server, especially the optimisation of the Win settings with say AO and/or Fidelizer. And suggestions on which disk or partition to do it in since most people here are using Euphony already and probably wouldn’t  want to wipe out their installation during comparison tests.

 

Currently Euphony installation is a simple process of insert a USB and boot.

 

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I’ve been told there will be an update to v3 with no added features coming. To prepare for v4 and perhaps bug solving. FYI

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Sorry I know little about v4 apart that it was targeted for the end of last year which has now passed. So we might not have to wait that much longer for the answer. Some chatter about upsampling independence.. not from Euphony team but only what I gather. PGGB realtime probably won’t be integrated as apparently it’s too much work.

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23 hours ago, davide256 said:

mmm, I just deleted all my PGGB files. They do sound wonderful with a Chord DAC. But using an SRC-DX DDC with Metrum Octave, I found that they diminished midrange

texture and weight in obtaining the increased instrument separation. So YMMV with PGGB based on DDC/DAC solution.

I didn’t delete all my PGGB files as it took too long to make them! Just kept them aside for the time being. 

 

But I too found that I prefer the sound of NOS files to upsampled ones in my Pink Faun 2.16x / Euphony setup. For me its mainly the slight loss of ambience and body thinning effect that did it.

 

Coincidentally, Zaphod B has the same DAC - a Vinnie Rossi DAC2 but probably paired with different components. 

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5 hours ago, NanoSword said:

I don't like to exaggerate too much, but PGGB has a natural sound that is not found in other players, and I think other players should add the PGGB feature to complete their player.

Even on devices that I consider noisy and not worth the sound, it benefits amazingly with PGGB.

I've tried Windows, HQ, Foobar-RT, Euphony Stylus HQ, and Mac HQ and always find that PGGB files more natural.

I highly appreciate the transparency of the sound and that it is natural, and that makes me biased towards choosing PGGB

In every comparison I've made, I involuntarily prefer content that contains PGGB and it's easy to say the best sound I can hear should be with PGGB, at least in my system with Chord Dac.

 

I purchased this album from HDtrack and used the Combine Tracks feature When I hear this track, I hear a full depth and better resolution than the original track In fact,there is no competition with the original Track in any way. The layers of sound that I hear from Melody only appear with the PGGB and the bass is huge and beautiful, everything is clear there are more details. In this stage and depth everything is in its place in an orderly manner but with the original track the sound is smudged.

There must be a lot of fans in PGGB who have a DAC other than CHORD I have read some have a gustard and some have TERMINATOR-PLUS 

 

Well I should not talk like this about the PGGB on the subject of Euphony but I have to say what I want in the next update

Also I have to say that Stylus is the best music player I have in Euphony I didn't get much use from Roon or HQ but PGGB was totally the best.

 

 

Did I understand you correctly, that you like PGGB? 😬

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For sure adding PGGB into Euphony was considered - apparently Željko reached out to Zaphod immediately after learning about his software but discovered it wasn’t a trivial job to add it. Then it was a matter of deciding whether to spend time on integration or working on getting the v4 (or v3 versions at that time) out. Given Euphony already has HQPlayer integrated and might also be wanting to work on their own upsampler instead, the choice was clear. 
 

Like most decisions in life, it’s all a matter of priority.

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15 hours ago, davide256 said:

…

Both Roon and Stylus use a buffer for music to be played, the difference is that Stylus default is to buffer whole track before play (+next track if local tracks). You can see this

behavior with USB endpoints where when running Roon  you don't need much free RAM but if running Stylus  you must have enough free RAM to buffer 2 tracks.

The 2 track buffering also occurs with Tidal or Quobuz streaming files. You can mix up local and streamed files and Stylus will try to buffer the 2 files. Unlike local files, streaming playback will start whether the 2 track download is complete or not (despite the setting to download before starting playback which seems to applies only to local files).

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5 hours ago, dc-audiogeek said:

The Euphony Stylus beta has been released! Version 4.20220527 is now out in the world. 😀

 

It's definitely an early beta. It can only be run directly from a USB stick and there are a number of features that haven't been enabled yet. But it's here before 2023! Praise the digital gods.

 

 

If you’ve had a chance to hear it, how does it sound compared to latest v3?

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Couldn’t get my v4 to work. Hangs during booting. Curious to see if others have had better luck and how the sound compares with v3…

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12 hours ago, Exocer said:

I completely agree! Euphony 4 sounds phenomenally good, even from the USB stick.

Ditto, v4 beta sounds good. Next level details, texture and control while still sounding organic. Slightly smaller soundstage.

 

Many small adjustments making the program easier to use while keeping the same general look and feel so it’s pretty easy to move from v3 to v4. 

 

Under expert settings can load OS into ram. Unable to register the trial yet.

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11 hours ago, mantis07 said:

I’m booting off usb and am getting this - it never goes any further. Any ideas? I have an AMD Ryzen 4800 series NUC.

 

thanks

tony

 

 

V4 already running, there is no “loaded and working” screen.

 

use euphonyprep.local in browser for menu

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More installation notes for v4beta

 

- trial code should be entered inside euphony

- do not remove usb even if using ramroot

- if your music is stored in the same drive as v3 (the default v3 setup is a partition for the OS and another for the music on the same drive) his music partition will not be accessible in v4. If you need the music, make a copy out first.

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16 hours ago, 87mpi said:

Do I need to request a new trial code for V4 or can I enter the license code for V3?  

 

Has anyone tried to enter the license for HQPe?

 

You need to get a Trial code by following the pop-up instructions. The Trial code has to be entered inside Euphony v4. Full purchase for v4 isn't available yet (I think, didn't ask). The trial is good for a month.

 

Cant use code for v3 since v4 is an upgrade

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12 hours ago, ASRMichael said:

Euphony OS is browser based. When you load access via browser with IP. Check your router for IP address. Your router should assign DHCP address. 

 

Or you could just use "euphony prep.local" as the web address and the IP will sort itself out.

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10 hours ago, davide256 said:

...

 

Anyone have details on these resampling options for Stylus up sampling?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tried it, didn't like it on first try. I'm finding it makes the image a little unfocused. And a loss of fine details too. Bit-perfect is still better for me.

 

As for settings, don't know what the options means.

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4 hours ago, dc-audiogeek said:

Score! I was able to link my NAS shared music drive finally.

 

Since the File Management option is removed in the Trial version, mounting drives or copying/moving file might be tricky. I found a quick way to add drives - Under Music, go to Files and there is an option to add the folder/drive to Library from there.

 

Also for those already using v3 with music inside a partition on the same drive that stores the v3 Euphony software (this is the default installation setup for Euphony v3), this v3 music partition isn't available to v4beta. You will have to move the music out somewhere else first before launching v4beta. This is by design, Euphony ignores it's own drives on another disk.

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1 hour ago, PavelDosko said:

Hi gentlemen, what is the main functional difference between V3 and V4?

 

A few nice changes for me:

 

- It's not a function but Excellent sound! 😄👍 

 

- Music searching has been much improved. Far easier to find tracks and albums and search within favourites from both local and online sources. But still no integrated display showing both local and online sources in one screen like Roon does.

 

- There is now an option for the number of albums per row displayed to actively change depending on the size of the window. 

 

- As promised earlier, they incorporated Upsampling and Convolution options. At this time, I don't like the sound of their upsampling, bit perfect is still my preferred setting. Hopefully the final v4 release will work better

 

- My system runs hotter under v4beta, at least a few degrees.

 

- The CPU info now shows the freq of my AMD Rizen CPU but can't control it. Looks like it's still fluctuating despite locking it to a fixed frequency in both BIOS and the Expert Settings

 

- Did I mention the excellent sound? Next level emotional involvement, focus and details. Oh yeah!

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37 minutes ago, flkin said:

 

Or you could just use "euphony prep.local" as the web address and the IP will sort itself out.

 

Sorry that should be "euphonyprep.local". Auto correct issues...

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v4 is pretty clearly in development still. For those moving v4 from USB drive into SSD just be warned there will probably be issues to resolve later. Željko gave instructions to load from USB and not to remove the USB during use even if using Ramroot.

 

My installation from a Sandisk Ultra USB 3.0, 32G drive worked properly with the precaution of a security bit wipe during formatting. Takes a little longer but it's good to do this every now and then to really clear old USB drives. They seem to run faster too. 

 

In the Expert Settings, there is an option to return to an earlier kernel 5.11.4 (5.11.4-rt11-19-rt-bfq-dev) from the current 5.14.2 (5.14.2-rt21-3-rt-bfq-dev). This makes quite a change in the sound. The sound returns closer v3. Some here have described the v4 sound to be clearer but thinner in bass. I have found that too. The tighter focus seems to have compressed the bass into a sound less realistic. Using the 5.11.4 kernel, the bass comes back but so does the blurred focus too. Music plays louder and closer with more engagement. You get a thicker and fatter sound.

 

I wanted to see if any other adjustments could get the 5.14.2 clarity and focus with the bass and engagement of 5.11.4. And noticed that Ramroot is not functioning in 5.11.4. Returning back to the newer 5.14.2, Ramroot continues not to function and the sound isn't as precise as before. It's obvious some changes have been made that wasn't reversed during the switch back to the current kernel. So kernel adjustments are intriguing but not yet working fully at this time. I expected this kind of thing with beta software and another reason why I don't install the v4beta into an internal drive just yet. Who knows what it might do to my music partition?

 

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Given that kernel updates make such a HUGE difference in sound, it's good to see the new v4 has this option to try new Linux kernels. AudioLinux has the following to choose from. They seem to be newer than the ones offered in the current v4. Not to infer that they automatically sound better, just that the choices Željko offers are very specific for his own reasons. Also note that Piero mentions AL patches in the kernels - I wonder what those are for?

 

 

[flkin]

Some update news:

 

Final v4 targeted for end of this month. And it will be installed in the existing v3 partition so v3 music files and playlists will be intact and should work. 
 

In the next update we will be allowed to add EUPHONY_MUSIC partition of non-active Euphony installation to the current library. Unfortunately User playlists from that partition will still not work yet. 

 

The mess of having to copy music out of the v3 partition for v4 to access has messed up my album sorting. So glad this will solve that and really looking forward to the final release end of the month. 😄👍🏻

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I have a spare Orico Dual Bay SSD M.2 running a hardware RAID 0 USB 3.1 drive in the office which operates without additional external power. It runs far faster than my SanDisk Ultra USB stick.

 

Curious to see if I could load the Euphony image into a very fast multi-disk RAID0 drive, it worked and booted up very fast. Runs as fast as Euphony installed in an internal drive (unlike when running from the SanDisk USB stick) and seems to be more stable during operations. Despite using RAMROOT, there is definitely USB disk access during operations and this drive really helped during library scans etc.

 

From what I can tell, it sounds a little better too. Images a little more real 

 

Might be worth the time to try this sort of thing out while waiting for the v4 full release