Euphony OS w/Stylus player setup and issues thread

[cat6man]

8 hours ago, walloon said:

My library is "only" 2TB but I had the same issue when I tested Euphony/Stylus on a 16gb USB stick. I then moved to a 64gb stick and all went well.

 

thanks, i've ordered 128gb usb sticks that should be here tomorrow.

 

in the meantime, i've removed by HDD drive and replaced it with a 16gb usb stick holding the tracks i most utilize for SQ evaluation.  this way, i can at least begin to make SQ evaluations.

 

i've also entered expert options and set:

1.  ramroot enabled

2.  set the buffer to 2GB (i've got 8GB of NUC ram, and zram shows 2.4GB free)

 

any recommendations for any of the other expert parameters (e.g. cpu isolation)?

 

lastly, if i need a bigger usb stick to load my HDD library, will that become a problem when i want to run ramroot with my full 6TB music library?

[Chopin75]

6 minutes ago, cat6man said:

 

thanks, i've ordered 128gb usb sticks that should be here tomorrow.

 

in the meantime, i've removed by HDD drive and replaced it with a 16gb usb stick holding the tracks i most utilize for SQ evaluation.  this way, i can at least begin to make SQ evaluations.

 

i've also entered expert options and set:

1.  ramroot enabled

2.  set the buffer to 2GB (i've got 8GB of NUC ram, and zram shows 2.4GB free)

 

any recommendations for any of the other expert parameters (e.g. cpu isolation)?

 

lastly, if i need a bigger usb stick to load my HDD library, will that become a problem when i want to run ramroot with my full 6TB music library?

Any reason why u limit Buffer to 2 GB Ram only? Rather than default, which I think is to 50% of entire RAM

[cat6man]

15 minutes ago, Chopin75 said:

Any reason why u limit Buffer to 2 GB Ram only? Rather than default, which I think is to 50% of entire RAM

 

i picked 2GB because that was what zram showed was free.

if i can go beyond that without problem, i shall.

also, are you saying that leaving that entry blank is using 1/2 of the ram (or 4GB) by default?

[Chopin75]

On 8/11/2020 at 2:05 PM, edwardsean said:

Thanks Dave, 

There are a few things to consider here, one is that you're comparing a SDCard, SSD connected locally and the HD was connected over network. Did you try connecting a HD directly to the NUC and were the results the same?

 

Also, in your second post you mentioned you moved to RAM mode. I assume you mean RamRoot. However, in your tests were you caching to an Optane drive and buffering 100% song to RAM before playback. 

 

This is the use case that I'm trying to test. The question is: if audio files sound different played directly from SDCard, SSD, or HD, does this difference hold when the files are no longer being played directly but from cache/RAM?

If u run Ramroot the RAM quality becomes most important. If u run ramroot on a poor Cheap commercial RAM the RAMROOT sucks! I have not noticed much difference In SQ when switching from SSD SATA drive To optane. Optane does

run faster with loading files. Maybe running at Ramroot diminishes the differences. But I did not

do A/B comparison as the optane is internally mounted that is a pain to take out again. It took 2 wks to burn in so I cannot remember clearly what was like before. However it does not require external

PS so that would save u a 5V LPS

[edwardsean]

Yeah, I surprised to find how much difference Apacer made. I only wish the 2666MHz sticks were readily available. It took some doing to track down used. Definitely worth it though. 

[Chopin75]

1 hour ago, cat6man said:

 

i picked 2GB because that was what zram showed was free.

if i can go beyond that without problem, i shall.

also, are you saying that leaving that entry blank is using 1/2 of the ram (or 4GB) by default?

That is what the Euphony guy told me, that about 50% is reserved for Music file loaded for RAM (if I remember correctly) . However, unless u have huge music files 2 GB is probably enough. There may be some advantages in SQ if u occupy less RAM for music. I have 32 GB ram so i can run 100% buffer for huge files of 4 G. And also can run buffer queue which means I can load entire large album  (DSD usually) into the buffer. And run ramroot at the same time. U would need high Quality RAM for this kind of stuff. RAM quality may actually be more important than HD or SSD quality esp with RAmroot

[edwardsean]

I have huge files myself, and with only 8GB of industrial grade RAM, I run out all the time. I have 32GB of regular consumer grade RAM, which I don't use. It was the sacrifice I made to use the Apacer RAM.

 

What high quality RAM are you running that you were able get 32Gb? 

[Chopin75]

41 minutes ago, edwardsean said:

I have huge files myself, and with only 8GB of industrial grade RAM, I run out all the time. I have 32GB of regular consumer grade RAM, which I don't use. It was the sacrifice I made to use the Apacer RAM.

 

What high quality RAM are you running that you were able get 32Gb? 

[Chopin75]

42 minutes ago, edwardsean said:

I have huge files myself, and with only 8GB of industrial grade RAM, I run out all the time. I have 32GB of regular consumer grade RAM, which I don't use. It was the sacrifice I made to use the Apacer RAM.

 

What high quality RAM are you running that you were able get 32Gb? 

I probably had the same Apacer ones u had, from the batch order by Nenon? I ended up using 32 GB 4x 8 GB. I think 16 GB was ok with DSD 256 but would

not do DSD 512 files well. In any case having more RAM

so u won’t need to fill it up

with music all the time seems to help, of course to counterbalance the potential Noise from large RAM itself. But with these high quality RAM there does not appear to be degradation in SQ with more

RAM, which apparently was the case

with inferior Commercial RAM. 

[dminches]

When playing music from Qobuz (or Tidal) is there any buffering? I don't see the "i" information icon turn blue like it does for local music.  I thought someone did a review of this and said it does buffer a couple songs but I can't recall where that was written up.

 

[flkin]

4 hours ago, dminches said:

When playing music from Qobuz (or Tidal) is there any buffering? I don't see the "i" information icon turn blue like it does for local music.  I thought someone did a review of this and said it does buffer a couple songs but I can't recall where that was written up.

 

Both Qobuz or Tidal seems to buffer 2 tracks when playing through Stylus despite not showing the blue ‘i’ (however this is not true when using HQP). I wrote about my tests on Tidal a few months ago at the end of a long post here:

 

Rajiv later confirmed this works with Qobuz tracks.

You can unplug the Ethernet cable from the streamer after starting the playback and the tracks play on.

[AudioDoctor]

Has anyone here used the Summus in EP (endpoint) mode and compared it to the Optical Sonore Signature Rendu SE?

 

Will it work in EP mode as an NAA or is it a Roon endpoint only?

[edwardsean]

Just a quick caveat on BIOS. I don't know if this is common knowledge but, I went into BIOS to check that I had everything setup for maximum performance, which I did.

 

While I was in there I saw that under cooling, my fan preference was set to "balance" (default). I switched it to "fanless," because I'm using an Akasa fanless case. So, I thought this would either make no difference, or possibly add a slight optimization by defeating fan polling. 

 

I started up Euphony and it was struggling with normal operation. It seems that setting the BIOS to "fanless" throttles performance. I've read that it disables Turbo and/or HyperThreading. That may be right even though both still show up as active. 

 

At any rate, I found it severely hampers Euphony, at least the way I'm running it. Going back into BIOS and setting fan to "balanced" and everything is right as rain again. 

[dminches]

For those of you who haven't read some of the comments in the "Shootout at the Linux Corral" thread, Rajiv dropped some helpful pointers about setting the BIOS to optimize the sound in Euphony.  While these are computer and power supply dependent, he is recommending that you try running the system with Turbo and Hyperthreading on and using Euphony to cap the maximum frequency if in fact you hear harshness with it wide open.

 

I tried this last night and it resulted in a more-than-subtle uptick in sound quality.  I have a Sean Jacobs DC4 which seems to have more than enough power for me to run my processor at 4.5 GHz instead of just 3.5.

 

I am wondering what others have done to tune their BIOS to achieve their best sound quality.  This topic isn't cover in the Euphony guide. 

 

I have always run my systems with Turbo turned off but this was in a Windows server environment and at the recommendation of Phil at highend-audiopc / Audiophile Optimizer.

 

 

[ASRMichael]

On 8/31/2020 at 2:05 PM, dminches said:

For those of you who haven't read some of the comments in the "Shootout at the Linux Corral" thread, Rajiv dropped some helpful pointers about setting the BIOS to optimize the sound in Euphony.  While these are computer and power supply dependent, he is recommending that you try running the system with Turbo and Hyperthreading on and using Euphony to cap the maximum frequency if in fact you hear harshness with it wide open.

 

I tried this last night and it resulted in a more-than-subtle uptick in sound quality.  I have a Sean Jacobs DC4 which seems to have more than enough power for me to run my processor at 4.5 GHz instead of just 3.5.

 

I am wondering what others have done to tune their BIOS to achieve their best sound quality.  This topic isn't cover in the Euphony guide. 

 

I have always run my systems with Turbo turned off but this was in a Windows server environment and at the recommendation of Phil at highend-audiopc / Audiophile Optimizer.

 

 

I think you have the best LPS there is, set to full power. You should’ve have any harshness running turbo & HT with DC4. Benefits should be increased dynamics & detail. 
 

I’ve got SJ DC3 10a version. This allows me to run at 5.0ghz, running HQP.. It’s still breaking in, so need to wait till I find the optimum CPU settings. C&P states turned, HD Audio, Sata controller, USB’s, RGB’s, temp monitoring, all off. Sure they’re others which I can’t remember right now. I also set RAM voltage to required rather than leaving on auto. 
 

Enjoy! 

[dminches]

2 minutes ago, ASRMichael said:

I think you have the best LPS there is, set to full power. You should’ve have any harshness running turbo & HT with DC4. Benefits should be increased dynamics & detail. 
 

I’ve got SJ DC3 10a version. This allows me to run at 5.0ghz, running HQP.. It’s still breaking in, so need to wait till I find the optimum CPU settings. C&P states turned, HD Audio, Sata controller, USB’s, RGB’s, temp monitoring, all off. Sure they’re others which I can’t remember right now. I also set RAM voltage to required rather than leaving on auto. 
 

Enjoy! 

 

Mine is still breaking in as well.

 

Are C-states turned on or off?  I have the items you listed turned off; network controller as well since I am using a JCAT card.

 

[ASRMichael]

12 minutes ago, dminches said:

 

Mine is still breaking in as well.

 

Are C-states turned on or off?  I have the items you listed turned off; network controller as well since I am using a JCAT card.

 

I’m no expert but remember few years ago reading on forum to turn off P & C states. Article here, 

 

Not even sure if Euphony controls P states or not. C States are power saving processes, anything to do with saving energy/throttling CPU I turn off. 

 

https://www.thomas-krenn.com/en/wiki/Processor_P-states_and_C-states

[lmcuong4u]

Hi,

I am using AMD Ryzen Pro 4650G with licensed Euphony.

When I check the System Info in Euphony, Temperature shows NaN(oC), not accuracy temperature.

I would like to check the temperature of CPU. Anyone got experience with AMD CPU, please help.

Thank you.

[flkin]

Someone else can confirm this but I believe AMD Rizen CPU doesn’t report temperatures proprtly. I had this issue with AudioLinux and now also with Euphony too.

[dminches]

1 hour ago, flkin said:

Someone else can confirm this but I believe AMD Rizen CPU doesn’t report temperatures proprtly. I had this issue with AudioLinux and now also with Euphony too.

 

That is correct.  The temps were always zero with my Ryzen.  They are reporting fine in the same setup with an Intel processor.

 

[Lukasluis]

2 hours ago, dminches said:

 

That is correct.  The temps were always zero with my Ryzen.  They are reporting fine in the same setup with an Intel processor.

 

If I may ask, how's the SQ of the Ryzen as compared with Intel? I researching for a hardware to run my Euphony license. I have an Intel Nuc817 with an oversized power supply but don't quite like the outcome 

[dminches]

1 minute ago, Lukasluis said:

If I may ask, how's the SQ of the Ryzen as compared with Intel? I researching for a hardware to run my Euphony license. I have an Intel Nuc817 with an oversized power supply but don't quite like the outcome 

 

The short answer is “I don’t know yet.”  I haven’t used the Sean Jacobs DC4 with the Ryzen yet.  Once everything is fully broken in I will swap the PCs along with the network card and see how they compare.

 

[lmcuong4u]

2 hours ago, Lukasluis said:

If I may ask, how's the SQ of the Ryzen as compared with Intel? I researching for a hardware to run my Euphony license. I have an Intel Nuc817 with an oversized power supply but don't quite like the outcome 

I used AMD Ryzen Pro 4650G, but some issues due to new model of CPU. So I change to Intel 9th i5.

On my system, I don't find any SQ difference between them.

[lmcuong4u]

6 hours ago, flkin said:

Someone else can confirm this but I believe AMD Rizen CPU doesn’t report temperatures proprtly. I had this issue with AudioLinux and now also with Euphony too.

Yes, I checked with Euphony support. He told me Linux package that they use has problems with getting temperature readings from newer Ryzen chips.

I want to use fanless so I need to check temperature sometimes. I replaced Intel CPU for easier monitoring. 

[davide256]

I've finally given in and purchased embedded HQPlayer to use with Stylus for up conversion. When I was using NOS DAC's limited to 192khz  HQPlayer

didn't really help but now that I have a DSD capable DAC with higher up-sampling rates, embedded  HQPlayer really sharpens Stylus transient attack and

complex melodic lines feel like they have gone from being drawn with edge smearing to sharp clean lines.

Has me wondering if HQPlayer should be considered a "gateway drug" eventually leading to an M scaler addiction.🤑