Euphony OS w/Stylus player setup and issues thread

[ASRMichael]

1 hour ago, al2813 said:

Another topic which I had an issue with recently is copying very large files into my music SSD. I use the euphony files manager but when I have very large files 700mb and upwards, I get an error "400: ENOSPC: no space left on device, write" - anyway to work around that? 

Did you open a ticket with Euphony? 

[ASRMichael]

23 minutes ago, RickyV said:

@ASRMichael and @TheAttorney very interesting, trying to get my head around this. So what I gathered from your posts, correct me if I am wrong.

 

First I removed core isolation, 0-7.

Then put a  .  in the cpu isolation command line. And got,

 

scroll sideways 

 

I am trying to follow @TheAttorney’s method so I put 0 systemd 1 nfm 2 dhcpcd 2 dbus-daemon 2 haveged 2 lvmetad 2 avahi-daemon 2 gstp 2-6 stylus 6-7 in the command line and applied. Then I emptied the command line and put the  .  in cl.

 

To me core 4 is not doing much, so isolate IRQ131 (eth0) into core 4? (irq/131 4)
Is eth0 the usb and Ethernet nic ? Not sure what to call it.

scroll right

 

Is this correct?

 

Put your Core isolation in first click apply

 

Then delete text in core isolation box and put in IRQ & then apply. It should come up with something like this

[ASRMichael]

25 minutes ago, RickyV said:

@ASRMichael and @TheAttorney very interesting, trying to get my head around this. So what I gathered from your posts, correct me if I am wrong.

 

First I removed core isolation, 0-7.

Then put a  .  in the cpu isolation command line. And got,

 

scroll sideways 

 

I am trying to follow @TheAttorney’s method so I put 0 systemd 1 nfm 2 dhcpcd 2 dbus-daemon 2 haveged 2 lvmetad 2 avahi-daemon 2 gstp 2-6 stylus 6-7 in the command line and applied. Then I emptied the command line and put the  .  in cl.

 

To me core 4 is not doing much, so isolate IRQ131 (eth0) into core 4? (irq/131 4)
Is eth0 the usb and Ethernet nic ? Not sure what to call it.

scroll right

 

Is this correct?

 

Anything that is Eth or XHCI set to your gstp cores. 

[ASRMichael]

6 hours ago, RickyV said:

 

 

 

Which one is the USB IRQ? XHCI?

 

Many thanks 
 

Yes, sorry been out golfing hence the delay in getting back to you. 

[ASRMichael]

6 hours ago, RickyV said:

I am not getting this. Do I type IRQ or IRQ & ?? Sorry

Looking at your post above. Type irq/131 4 into cpu & apply. Something like this shows up. Can you screenshot it and post here? 

[ASRMichael]

9 hours ago, RickyV said:

So I have been playing around a bit this evening. I was on 0-1 gstp 1-7 before I started.

Then went straight to, 0 systemd 1 nfm 2 dhcpcd 2 dbus-daemon 2 haveged 2 lvmetad 2 avahi-daemon 2 gstp 2-6 stylus 6-7 irq/131 4. To me it sounded a little harsher and thinner, so not liking it in comparison with 0-1 gstp 1-7. 
So I modified it to 0 systemd 1 nfm 2 dhcpcd 2 dbus-daemon 2 haveged 2 lvmetad 2 avahi-daemon 2 gstp 2-7 irq/131 4, wich seem to help. Resulting in:

 

 

Edited 

 

Presume you using USB also. If so put IRQ/130 5

 

You see your 1st photo it’s sitting now in core 0. The 2nd photo is obsolete now, even though it shows counts. The counts includes now before & after all in one. 
 

 

[ASRMichael]

When you use “.” Its only to find out where all your IRQ are & what numbers they are. Once you have IRQ numbers forget about the “.” Because as soon as you hit your core isolation the “.” Info changes. In your case all of them go to core 0. 
 

Only thing that matters now is this. You can see you’ve set IRQ131 to core 4. But IRQ 130 is set to core 0. So change it also to one of your gstp cores. 
 

Hopefully that makes sense? 

 

 

[ASRMichael]

@TheAttorney @RickyV
 

Maybe Zeijko can confirm. It’s not about how busy cores are it’s about setting the Ethernet or USB IRQ to the same cores as gstp. 
 

Also if you look at RickV 1st post it shows his usb (IRQ/130) was in core 5. It’s When he set core isolation it moved itself onto core 0. Now he should set it back to IRQ/130 5. After he’s done this the IRQ that handles usb is in the same core range as his gstp processes. That’s what he want. 
 

Unless I’m completely misunderstanding things. 

[ASRMichael]

20 minutes ago, TheAttorney said:

I'll give it a go tonight. I did consider this a while back, but can't remember if I actually tried it.

 

@ASRMichael, all I know from my limited tests is that moving USD IRQ from a core that shared both gstp+Stylus to a core that ran gstp alone gave me the biggest increase in SQ during this exercise.  The first core was definitely busier in terms of % CPU and temperature. It could have been a coincidence, but it was good enough for me. What c-w seems to be alluding to, is that the quietest possible core could indeed be important - yet to be confirmed by a listening test.

 

It's possible that RickyV's NUC did not behave exactly like mine (although it seemed very similar), but too many screen shots and examples have flown by in the meantime, so I'm not inclined to trawl through it all in detail at this point. Onwards and upwards. Everything is WIP at this stage 🙂.

You make a good point. WIP, it’s a feature that is worth exploring further. I encourage everyone to try it. Both on gstp cores & least busiest as well. 

[ASRMichael]

15 minutes ago, mantis07 said:

When I hit apply in CPU Isolation I'm not seeing gstp. Is this normal for an AMD CPU (Ryzen)?

 

Thanks

Tony

What core isolation are you using? You only see gstp if using Stylus. If using HQP  you shouldn’t use any core isolation. As HQP has it on own. 

[ASRMichael]

Did you type 0-19 into core isolation? 19 being maximum cores you using. You might have 8 for example. Can you post a screenshot? 

[ASRMichael]

11 minutes ago, mantis07 said:

I have 16 cores it looks like:

 

Because you’re using Room media player not Stylus media player. 

[ASRMichael]

2 hours ago, StreamFidelity said:

I tried Euphony. I like the tidy user interface and the options in RAM for buffering and loading Euphony from RAM.

 

A little prehistory:

 

I am a convinced HQPlayer user and like to use DSD 256 with the modulator ASDM7EC. These algorithms require two cores with at least 4GHz for stereo. No problem for an Intel Core i9-9900K. Since I have a fanless PC, I have to throttle the temperature development. I do this in the BIOS with a fixed clock rate of 4.2GHz. Very high-performance under Windows 10 Pro and without any problems.

 

Unfortunately this does not work under Euphony. Regardless of the setting, two cores are always occupied with 100% utilization.

 

 

It seems to be a problem that has existed for a long time. Too bad.

Do you have the same issue with HQP Embedded linux image? Just checking you not making the assumption it’s just Euphony?

[ASRMichael]

3 hours ago, StreamFidelity said:

 

No idea. I haven't tried it. I think the Euphony has the HQPlayer 4 Embedded 4.20.3 from January. So a bit out of date but new enough.

 

Incidentally, PCM works very well.

How have you found Euphony versus your optmized Windows? Or are you still evaluating? 

[ASRMichael]

39 minutes ago, maxst67 said:

Is there the new version of Euphony 20210421 other he tried it? Impressions? I'm nailed to 102 and before updating I would like to understand if it's similar to 108 or it's just an update of 117

Try for yourself. 

[ASRMichael]

On 4/20/2021 at 4:38 PM, StreamFidelity said:

 

The advantages of Euphony are the ease of use, the updates at the push of a button and the few processes running. Unfortunately, the core assignment for the HQPlayer is not as efficient as in Windows. It remains to be seen whether a newer version of HQPLayer will fix this problem.

 

The advantages of Windows are that it is widely used with a variety of good tools. But focusing the processes on audio means a lot of work. If that succeeds, Windows sounds great.

New version of HPQ on latest update. 4.22.3

[ASRMichael]

46 minutes ago, Exocer said:

I just upgraded from 108 to 421 (I downgraded from 117 back to 108) and I think the current version sounds great.

Me too! No issues! 

[ASRMichael]

9 minutes ago, al2813 said:

421 is indeed very nice. Sounds a bit better than 108 to my taste. As I did the change I also tested again the Stylus player vs my (default) Roon server + Stylus EP. Maybe I should have not done that as again Stylus player sounds for me better, but am so addicted to the Roon GUI....oh dear....

I can guarantee if you use Stylus for a month then try switch back to Roon, you’ll be back to Stylus like a flash! I only use Roon & Tidal for searching new music but always switch back to Stylus! 

[ASRMichael]

1 hour ago, drjimwillie said:

Hi Chopin - thank you for the reply.

How I have my OS loaded was going to be my second question.

 

The question I asked above is a basic navigation question. I don’t know my way around Linux/Euphony to find where a hard drive would be.  I am inferring from your response when you say file manager, that on a separate windows or Apple computer, when I see my server on the network, I should be able to navigate to any hard drive on it. Is that correct?

 

My current computer/server is in older CAPS Pipeline, with a supermicro motherboard and a Xeon  CPU. There is currently no hard drive installed and I am running the OS off a thumb drive.  I purchased the Optane stick and the PCIE adapter card to run the OS on. My intent is just to use it as NVME. When I went into bios to set up the boot drive I did not see an option for NVME. I contacted Supermicro and they told me that NVME will not work in this computer.  
However, considering that I have the Optane and the PCIE adapter card, I want to install it just to see if I can load some files on it, to see if they sound better than files loaded on my Nas.  That is why I am asking how I can see and access it.

If I can get it to work, next I will try to load the OS onto it, as I would prefer that to the thumb drive.  
I own the full license of Euphony 

Once you install Euphony onto your new hard drive, just make sure you tick share library. It’s got SMB share. So from another pc or laptop. Just mapped a drive with your IP of Euphony. Then drop your music into the mapped drive. Easy as that. 
 

Mapped drive something like

 

\\192.168.1.12\music

 

 

[ASRMichael]

32 minutes ago, drjimwillie said:

I installed the M.2 drive on the adapter card into the PCIE slot. I used BIOS to assign EFI to that slot and I was able to see the Optane drive in Euphony. I used the euphony utility to copy the OS from the thumb drive onto the Optane. I was not able to boot from it. Even with the help of super micro support, No success. The tech said if the drive did not show up in the boot utility, it was never going to be able to use that drive to boot from. 
The good news is now I will be able to store some music on that 32 Gig Optane drive, the bad news is I have to figure out how to reformat that drive.😳

where is the information on the euphony file management?
I looked in the user manual and I could not find it.  

I will have to look for a reference on how to use samba. 
I have two euphony servers currently, I was able to see one on the network, but I was not able to get into it even using the password euphony and username Euphony. 

I just put the new Jcat net XE card in my super endpoint. (I am calling it a super endpoint because it was my state of the art server and I am now experimenting with it as an endpoint, using my old CAPS pipeline/ Xeon as the server feeding it, as an experiment. I have it so I thought that I should see what happens if I use it.) The result is that my Crosshair VII with PF ultra clock on MB & PF ultra clock on I2S sounds flat by it’s self, compared to when it is being fed by the Pipeline server.

Even with the new J cat net XE card, files on my NAS sound better than from Qobuz.  
One thing I found interesting the other day was, I was going to install the J cat net Femto card I had removed from my super endpoint into the caps Pipeline server. I was playing a song from my  NAS, loaded into ram for playback. I powered down the Pipeline and the entire album continued to play.  I was assuming when the file was loaded into ram, it was loaded into the ram of the server but obviously I was wrong because it is loading it into the ram of the endpoint.

 

I will have to look at the IRQ to determine this but? I do not use USB, I use I2S from a pinkfaun ultra card and I am wondering how to identify the I RQ and if that should be isolated.

 

thank you

 

Try username audiouser password Euphony 

[ASRMichael]

9 hours ago, di-fi said:

Is that also how you would copy-paste a previous version of Euphony like 102 or 108 into one of the 4 partitions (EUPHONY_SYSTEM)? Or do you need the original Euphony installer files? 
I do not have any Linux knowledge but I also would like to compare in a quick and easy way between more than two versions of Euphony like some of you, but I need some guidance.

I do have different USB thumb drives with 102 and 108 and 117.  
If this goes beyond general interest please pm me. Thanks in advance!

Hi

 

I haven't managed to copy partitions, unfortunately!! Maybe someone here who knows Linex well does? Would be good to test 108 with new versions with IRQ. New version with IRQ sounds great to me. IRQ gives you something special that wasn't there before.  

[ASRMichael]

23 minutes ago, di-fi said:

I mentioned copy-paste as an example. Do not know if it even could work. But how do people here in a practical way compare 3 or more different versions of Euphony without going through the whole hassle of a new installation each time? They run each version from thumb drive only? Like stick 102 in , listen, pull out, stick 117 in, pull out, stick 108 in etc. 

For example I have the last version on ssd with reverse option to 108. Standard configuration allows for easy bi-version switch. But how do I add for example 102 to this duo for comparison?
Today we have different users with clearly different preferences. Making OS version changes easy and accessible opens the door to actively using different OS version depending on your mood and/or set up. Who can make it work? Or how did you make it work? 

Hi no you just can’t copy & paste. Others like you must have usb drives with different versions. You should burn another usb drive & try new version with IRQ and compare against 108. Post your findings here. 

[ASRMichael]

11 hours ago, di-fi said:

Thanks and sorry to insist, it's out of curiosity, and maybe one day soon my system will evolve so it becomes practical to know. I understand you have no USB drive. Do you keep more than 2 versions of Euphony on your Optane 32 Gb?

I had M.2 fail which carried two versions, 108 and 102 if I recall. Each time you upgrade you can go back one if don't like it. Unfortunately I had no other backups on a USB from a fresh install image.  

[ASRMichael]

11 hours ago, StreamFidelity said:

Good news for HQPlayer users with DSD256 and modulator ASDM7EC: It works great!

 

I reported my problems.

Thanks to the excellent customer service from Željko. My Euphony version was adapted to the HQPlayer. The workload shows a high but reduced workload of two cores. The most important thing: no more stuttering, just a melodious sound.

 

The configuration of two cores is normal for stereo. The EC modulator requires at least 4GHz clock frequency for each channel. It works the same way under Windows.

 

 

Of course I also played with core isolation. I had to learn that the HQPlayer always falls back to its own core assignment when the stream starts again. The trick in my case is to leave the first 8 cores to the HQPlayer and distribute the rest. In the picture you can now see that the other cores from Core 8 - 15 are also used. For example CPU 9+10.

 

How did I do that? For Core Isolation I chose this setting: 8-15 hqplayerd 0-7 dhcpcd 1-15

 

Explanation: All programs not listed separately are distributed away from the HQPlayer to the cores 8-15. The HQPlayer stays at 0-7. dhcpcd is important for my Solarflare X2522 NIC, which has to run on as many cores as possible so that the lowest possible latencies can be achieved. I only left out core 0, as this core is usually heavily loaded. This is what it looks like:

 

1067 nfm: 8-15
1078 stylus: 8-15
1178 avahi-daemon:: 8-15
1385 hqplayerd: 0-7
469 / usr / bin / lvmetad: 8-15
641 / usr / bin / haveged: 8-15
661 / usr / bin / acpid: 8-15
711 / usr / bin / dhcpcd: 1-15

 

Overall, the power consumption has been reduced compared to Windows. This is also noticeable in a lower heat development. On average I am now <50°C. Before it was about 10°C more!

 

Summary

 

For me, Euphony has taken the important hurdle of error-free playback with the HQPlayer DSD 256 / ASDM7EC. I have no Linux knowledge and really appreciate the simple, well-designed user interface. The driver for the Solarflare NIC (SFN8522 & X2522) works without any problems. Euphony's ticket system is excellent. I enjoy the great sound.

 

Excellent news! Have you tried IRQ? With your core isolation? 

[ASRMichael]

It’s important to remember when you set core isolation it changes your IRQ. So just because pre core isolation it looks like everything is good. As soon as you set core isolation it will change the IRQ. usually to first isolation set. 0-1 or 0-6 etc. 
 

Quite confusing I know.