Euphony OS w/Stylus player setup and issues thread

[austinpop]

22 hours ago, edwardsean said:

Does anyone know if min frequency functions now?  I haven't found that it does.

 

Yes, the min frequency setting really does not get used by the Euphony OS. This is by design. Željko can confirm. Euphony OS runs with the CPU governor set to "performance." See https://wiki.archlinux.org/index.php/CPU_frequency_scaling

 

This causes the CPU to run at the "max frequency" all the time. The reason this does not cause CPU temps to rise is because on native sample rate server/renderers on Euphony, the CPU is mostly idle. When a core goes idle, it enters into a halted state (C-state). This is an extremely low energy state.

[TheAttorney]

On 10/24/2020 at 6:39 AM, edwardsean said:

However, with the new DC umbilical I went up again to 0-1 gstp 2-7 with some nice results. So, I decided to go further than I had before and tried 0 gstp 1-7, giving the playback engine 7 cores. 

 

I don't know, if your system can handle it, the benefits to SQ are knocking me out. More dynamics, clarity, soundstage, definiteness, detail, and extension in the highs.

 

I've been watching temperatures, because 3 of the 4 physical cores have dropped in temp, but core 1 is now up and holding around 74 degrees. That's acceptable to me.

 

I could resist no longer and enabled hyper-threading on my 7i7DN (8650U) so I could try out these latest core isolations.

 

My first reaction was how different HT sounded compared to my usual HT off, even with the same speeds and equivalent core isolation. Smoother and more natural. At first I wasn't sure if this smoothness was good or bad, but going back to HT off resulted in a thinner, "digital" sound, so HT is staying on. And no difference to core temperature or power consumption.

 

So good news, and now the better news: Whilst I broadly agree with your findings, I think I've found an even better combination than [0 gstp 1-7]. To my ears, [0-1 gstp 1-7] gives even more of the above SQ benefits, plus the further bonus of a significantly lower temperature for physical core 0. The temperatures are now more balanced across the cores, which isn't intuitive because it's the same physical core 0 in both cases. And virtual core 1 is now sharing gstp with everything else. Core Isolation moves in mysterious ways.

 

Compared to above SQ differences, I found turbo boost to be marginal, so I'm sticking with 1.1Ghz for the peace of mind of much lower temperatures. So my new favourite is:   1.1 Ghz, HT on, [0-1 gstp 1-7]

 

And I'm smiling because I've gained a SQ boost that I had previously spent 4 figures sums to achieve by h/w ugrades.

 

 

 

[Randomrunner]

On 10/26/2020 at 5:04 AM, dminches said:

 

What power supply are you using?  That is what really drives what max CPU frequency will work with your setup.  Before I got my Sean Jacobs DC4 I had to throttle the max frequency back.  After I added the SJ DC4 I didn't have to limit it.

 

I have a self-built fanless PC, with:

Streacom DB4 case, Intel i9-9900K, 16GB Ram, and the power supply is:

Streacom ST-ZF240 ZeroFlex 240W Passive PSU.  Any insights are appreciated. Thanks.

[edwardsean]

1 hour ago, TheAttorney said:

So good news, and now the better news: Whilst I broadly agree with your findings, I think I've found an even better combination than [0 gstp 1-7]. To my ears, [0-1 gstp 1-7] gives even more of the above SQ benefits, plus the further bonus of a significantly lower temperature for physical core 0. The temperatures are now more balanced across the cores, which isn't intuitive because it's the same physical core 0 in both cases. And virtual core 1 is now sharing gstp with everything else. Core Isolation moves in mysterious ways.

 

First of all, I know you must be a lawyer because you use the term "whilst" (grin). I do love the English language. 

 

Awesome! I'll try out 0-1 gstp 1-7 tonight. If I can improve SQ and lower temps that's a good day. Though you are quite right it is mysterious with so many system specific factors. I'm always at 3.9-4.2GHz so the results may vary. 

 

Isn't it a kick in head how core isolation affects SQ as much as it does? Also, I'm amazed that you can just adjust these parameters in real time and hear the changes. If you had to reboot each time I would constantly be questioning if I'm hearing the changes correctly. As it is it's just so handy to be able to assign cores whilst listening (I couldn't resist because of the assonance between 'whilst' and 'listening.' I do love the English language). 

[RickyV]

3 hours ago, TheAttorney said:

 

I could resist no longer and enabled hyper-threading on my 7i7DN (8650U) so I could try out these latest core isolations.

 

My first reaction was how different HT sounded compared to my usual HT off, even with the same speeds and equivalent core isolation. Smoother and more natural. At first I wasn't sure if this smoothness was good or bad, but going back to HT off resulted in a thinner, "digital" sound, so HT is staying on. And no difference to core temperature or power consumption.

 

So good news, and now the better news: Whilst I broadly agree with your findings, I think I've found an even better combination than [0 gstp 1-7]. To my ears, [0-1 gstp 1-7] gives even more of the above SQ benefits, plus the further bonus of a significantly lower temperature for physical core 0. The temperatures are now more balanced across the cores, which isn't intuitive because it's the same physical core 0 in both cases. And virtual core 1 is now sharing gstp with everything else. Core Isolation moves in mysterious ways.

 

Compared to above SQ differences, I found turbo boost to be marginal, so I'm sticking with 1.1Ghz for the peace of mind of much lower temperatures. So my new favourite is:   1.1 Ghz, HT on, [0-1 gstp 1-7]

 

And I'm smiling because I've gained a SQ boost that I had previously spent 4 figures sums to achieve by h/w ugrades.

 

 

 

👍 Thanks, went straight to HT on and core isolation on 0-1 gstp 1-7 today sounds indeed more relaxed and smooth and also seems to have backer background. 
 

[dminches]

3 hours ago, Randomrunner said:

I have a self-built fanless PC, with:

Streacom DB4 case, Intel i9-9900K, 16GB Ram, and the power supply is:

Streacom ST-ZF240 ZeroFlex 240W Passive PSU.  Any insights are appreciated. Thanks.

 

Given the power limitations with your power supply I would put the max CPU at 70% and start there.  I would think you would hear some harshness at 80-100%.  It is all trial and error.

[Randomrunner]

For those of you advanced user that are adjusting core isolation, I understand gtsp is the "playback engine", does it only matter when you are using Stylus, and the the DAC directly connected to your Euphony PC? 

 

My Euphony PC is connected through LAN to either

1) a Roon Endpoint, in this case Euphony PC is running RoonServer only.

2) a NAA endpoint, in this case Euphony PC is running  RoonServer + HQplayer.

 

Does anyone have suggestions for my scenario?  Thanks!

[edwardsean]

I tried out 0-1 gstp 1-7, and the temps got displaced to the first two cores. So 1 went down and 2 went up; both are low 60s. This is welcome.

 

To my ears the sound suffered slightly. It's really subtle, but it sounded smaller and flatter to me. 0 gstp 1-7 still sounds a bit larger and more vivid to me. 

 

This could just be my system or psychology. This is complicated, however, my guess is sill that the more cores you dedicate to gstp the better. Thinking simply, sharing core 1 reduces isolation. 

[TheAttorney]

11 hours ago, edwardsean said:

I tried out 0-1 gstp 1-7, and the temps got displaced to the first two cores. So 1 went down and 2 went up; both are low 60s. This is welcome.

To my ears the sound suffered slightly. It's really subtle, but it sounded smaller and flatter to me. 0 gstp 1-7 still sounds a bit larger and more vivid to me.

I'm still getting used to my new reference point, where the most obvious change was enabling HT. so the difference between core isolation 0 and 0-1 (and other close variants) is more subtle and subject to imagination. On further listening, 0-1 seemed a touch brighter than 0, which can give the impression of greater detail and impact, depending on the recording. With further listening, I tend to agree that 0 is a touch better overall. 

 

The temperature issue of squeezing "everything else" onto a single virtual core only applies to high CPU speeds. Any speed up to my 7i7DN's base frequency of 1.9Ghz has minimal effect on temperature no matter what I throw at it. Another thing to bear in mind with the single virtual core 0 is that CPU load does max out at 100% when I update the database or buffer files, etc. Spreading the load across 0-1 definitely helps here. So best to temporarily add more cores when doing any major database work.

 

Anyway, I also tried adjusting CPU speeds with my new reference and these are even more subtle and subject to imagination, but I felt that 1.5Ghz was fractionally better than 1.1Ghz, so my new favourite is 1.5Ghz, HT on, [0, gstp 1-7].

And that's enough testing for me - back to just enjoying the music.

 

BTW, for the avoidance of doubt, I have nothing to do with the law 🙂

 

 

[jacquesr]

Case closed. 

[Randomrunner]

There is a new version that just came out, where can one find the release notes?

[edwardsean]

Thanks for letting us know. I'm doing the update right now. Euphony is really putting out the updates. 

 

Please report if you hear any changes to sound.

 

Here is the latest changeling:

 

20201102
- WARNING for users on version less than 2020-10-05: TIDAL has changed authorization process and TIDAL will stop working sometimes mid December unless you update.
- Added processing of CUE playlist files
- Reorganization of Settings page
- Added some system info fields
- Added some Music DB stats
- Added some Summus specific UI changes
- Euphony launch page improvement: started audio service is displayed in addition to hostname
- Youtube playback fix
- Fixed adding multiple network drives
- Fixed Tidal expire problem
- Fixed Tidal authorization from native Android/iOS applications (they are updated - download the latest version)
- Fixed the problem when additional internal drives won't remount on startup
- Fixed radio playback mode

[flkin]

Anyone notice that their playlists don’t work anymore?

[TheAttorney]

18 hours ago, Randomrunner said:

There is a new version that just came out, where can one find the release notes?

Under Settings > Update tab, click on "Changes" near top of the screen.

Also, the changes log is displayed when clicking the version number of current version.

 

My update went smoothly. As before, if updating direct from ramroot, ramroot gets automatically disabled, so needs to be re-enabled and then rebooted.

 

First impressions: The settings tab is much neater now with 3 sub-tabs including Expert, so quicker to get to that compared to the previous scrolling.

Radio now works.

All my playlists give "no items found" message, but I haven't used playlists in months - and they generally were cached in optane drive which I also don't use for caching any more since file buffering became available.

[flkin]

13 hours ago, flkin said:

Anyone notice that their playlists don’t work anymore?

Restarting the Euphony app twice solves this. 

[TheAttorney]

9 hours ago, flkin said:

Restarting the Euphony app twice solves this [playlists]. 

Yes indeed, although in my case playlists still didn't work after 2 reboots if I include the original reboot to re-enable ramroot.

On a whim, I then did a "save root fs to disc", then a 3rd reboot and this time playlists came back. Not sure which of those last 2 actions mattered.

 

Going back several releases, I had occasional glitches when cached files were added to a playlist. Some files would later not be found. This may have been because the cached files had since been swapped out when the cache filled up, or maybe another reason. Anyway, now the playlists are more robust because Stylus automatically picks up the original file location if the cached file no longer exists. Not sure if it was this particular release that fixed that one, but it runs smoother now.

[TheAttorney]

A quicker way to resolve the playlist issue is to "Restart App" from the power menu drop-down. Much faster than rebooting and can quickly solve other issues when something goes out of sync. I had used this in the past and then forgot about it.

[dc-audiogeek]

Did I miss something or did they take away Airplay as an option? Hmm...must be a Summus thing. I can still find the option for Airplay in the menu for my Euphony PTS, but not for my Euphony Summus.

[walloon]

Hi,

 

WIth regards to"Samplerates mapping" in Stylus settings, I understand it maps unsupported samplerates to supported ones. 

 

Can it also be used to upsample like HQPLayer does? I guess the answer is no...or why would you pay for HQPLayer licence unless you want to upsample to DSD?

 

Can someone shed some light?

 

Thanks.

[flkin]

Yes sample rate mapping is for DACs that are unable to play higher rates but the function can be use for upsampling too. But for me it doesn’t sound as good as HQPlayer probably due to less sophisticated filter options.

 

2 hours ago, walloon said:

Hi,

 

WIth regards to"Samplerates mapping" in Stylus settings, I understand it maps unsupported samplerates to supported ones. 

 

Can it also be used to upsample like HQPLayer does? I guess the answer is no...or why would you pay for HQPLayer licence unless you want to upsample to DSD?

 

Can someone shed some light?

 

Thanks.

 

[flkin]

A minor Euphony bug:

 

If you use Stylus/HQPlayer then switch to Airplay and then switch back to Stylus, HQPlayer switches off by itself and need to be re-enabled in settings again. Thereafter all works fine again.
 

Bug acknowledged and should be fixed in the next version. 

[bos3812]

Hi all,

 

This is my first post in this thread which I was following from the beginning because I was interested in Euphony. Meanwhile I did build my own server/streamer, bought Euphony and took a subscription to Roon. I am very glad with the sound quality and sold my Sotm Ultra Neo.

 

I have two questions: In the second last version of Stylus there was a setting to load your songs in the memory of your player. In the new version I can't find it anymore. Can someone tell me where I can find it?

And the second question: How can I delete a song from the songlist with my Ipad?

 

Thanks in advance,

 

Eric

[edwardsean]

Upsampling to higher sample rates does not automatically mean better sound. Actually, it's the opposite for the basic filters that come with most apps. Unnecessary upsampling will only make the sound worse, and the further you get from the source frequency the more error you introduce.

 

The computationally heavy algorithms implemented in HQP and Mscaler are incredibly complex and are of a different nature. They don't only increase the sample rate, but attempt to reconstruct the original waveform. So, in their case the more samples you can give it the more accurate they become. 

 

Unfortunately, the readily available sampling filters (e.g., SoX) are not free/cheap ways to mimic the results of HQP/MSc. It's not their purpose/design. You want to use them only for simple corrections: 48KHz to 44.1KHz. 

[edwardsean]

As to loading songs to memory, no features have been removed as you know, just reorganized. 

 

The loading to RAM, "buffer before play," is in: Settings > Music service > Other music options.

 

You can load the tracks to a cache if you have a fast drive with "Use cache" in: Settings > Library > Miscellaneous. 

 

 

[bos3812]

How could I miss that? I don't know. Probably my age.

 

Thanks a lot Edwardsean.