Euphony OS w/Stylus player setup and issues thread

[Topk]

3 hours ago, flkin said:

Honestly, I can’t remember! Chances are I looked at the cpu consumption of Stylus and allocated the cores accordingly. 

 

My approach at that time was to separate and allocate cores to the listed services that seem to use the CPU.
 

I found that after isolating all the services listed, there was still some CPU action suggesting there are unlisted services running. So I grouped these under Core 0. The only way to separate them would be to allocate another core number to the other listed services one at a time. Thus the manual allocation of core 2 items
 

Later I found that I liked systemd type items separated and I gave it core 1

Try reducing Stylus from 2 cores to 1 and see which you prefer?

Thank you, that’s useful and makes sense. Will definitely try your settings and go from there.

[TheAttorney]

11 hours ago, Topk said:

Why do you give 2 cores to Stylus? I thought stylus was only the GUI? My instinct would give only 1 to stylus and more to gstp since it’s the player itself, but please let me know what you found!

 

Stylus, in this context, is not "just" the GUI.

In steady state music playing, without touching the GUI, the cores running Stylus are generally busier than those running gstp.

And the Stylus cores go into overdrive when, say, buffering to RAM or updating the database. Whether Stylus itself is doing this, or kicking of system sub-processes is a moot point. The end result is that cores allocated to Stylus are doing more stuff behind the scenes.

 

I had earlier found that giving up Stylus cores in favour of gstp was beneficial to SQ (but not to system responsiveness).

But with flikin's core isolation style, I no longer found this to be so. Too many variables to try to work out why.

 

What I did find still worked was to over-allocate the gstp to partly share it's neighbouring core allocations.

So, with start point of gstp 3-5, I found that gstp 2-5 sounded slightly better.

And gstp 3-6 also sounded slightly better.

But best of all was gstp 2-6, and I have a new reference that I'm delighted with 🙂.

 

In full, this is  0 systemd 1 nfm 2 dhcpcd 2 dbus-daemon 2 haveged 2 lvmetad 2 avahi-daemon 2 gstp 2-6 stylus 6-7

 

I can't explain why this should matter, but I expect the result to vary depending on how any particular CPU design handles its load balancing across cores and threads. As flkin has observed, there's more going on in the background than meets the eye.

 

Stretching gstp to even further beyond 2-6 did not seem to help, but by this stage I was getting into a muddle again. So I need to get used to my new reference for a while. It's so easy to by seduced by a new presentation and not spot the downside until later on.

 

[biosailor]

I have Euphony running Roon Core on a 4 CPU i5. When checking the temperature of the CPUs, Euphony often shows that one of the four CPUs runs at 100% full load. Is this something I should worry about? I also dropped the clock frequency to 1.5 GHz and the CPU temp is now never above 50 degs.

 

 

[TheAttorney]

3 hours ago, biosailor said:

I have Euphony running Roon Core on a 4 CPU i5. When checking the temperature of the CPUs, Euphony often shows that one of the four CPUs runs at 100% full load. Is this something I should worry about? I also dropped the clock frequency to 1.5 GHz and the CPU temp is now never above 50 degs.

 

If you have Roon processes isolated to a single core AND Roon is running a significant database update (like importing several albums), then this may be normal. If these two points do not apply then something is wrong and needs further investigation. What are your Core Isolation settings?

[biosailor]

1 hour ago, TheAttorney said:

If you have Roon processes isolated to a single core AND Roon is running a significant database update (like importing several albums), then this may be normal. If these two points do not apply then something is wrong and needs further investigation. What are your Core Isolation settings?

 

Thanks for your reply @TheAttorney!

 

There is no album importing going on at the moment, nor Roon backing up (see attached screenshots).

 

Core Isolation is default setting:

 

<defaut-isol><prg1-name><isol><prg2-name><isol>.

 

Whatever that means! Can you make any sense out of it?

 

Thanks for your help!

[TheAttorney]

@biosailor, it looks like you don't have any core isolation set, so that is not the problem.

If you hit Apply now, you'll see a list of processes that are running at their default allocation. This won't change anything - it's just a display so perfectly safe. It only changes if you actually enter something in the field.

 

Anyway, the only other thing I can think of is that you have roon on-demand analysis set to fast. This may overload the CPU if playing a new file that hasn't been analysed yet. But I'm clutching at straws here - I don't really know.

[biosailor]

15 minutes ago, TheAttorney said:

@biosailor, it looks like you don't have any core isolation set, so that is not the problem.

If you hit Apply now, you'll see a list of processes that are running at their default allocation. This won't change anything - it's just a display so perfectly safe. It only changes if you actually enter something in the field.

 

Anyway, the only other thing I can think of is that you have roon on-demand analysis set to fast. This may overload the CPU if playing a new file that hasn't been analysed yet. But I'm clutching at straws here - I don't really know.

 

Here's what I see when hitting Apply. Would anyone be so kind to explain what this all means 🙂?

 

 

[di-fi]

6 hours ago, biosailor said:

I have Euphony running Roon Core on a 4 CPU i5. When checking the temperature of the CPUs, Euphony often shows that one of the four CPUs runs at 100% full load. Is this something I should worry about? I also dropped the clock frequency to 1.5 GHz and the CPU temp is now never above 50 degs.

 

 

Maybe it has nothing to do with it, but I had the same problem once (running 4 cores and one freaking out in red) and Željko found I accidentally had activated “use cache” in library >miscellaneous> when at the same time “buffer” and “album buffer” were activated. Unchecking “use cache” instantly resolved the problem.

[biosailor]

Thanks for all the input! I suspect it was a weak WiFi link. Maybe it was trying to connect to my iPad/iPhone constantly while streaming/playing files. No other caching or anything was activated in Euphony.

 

As soon asI set up WiFi so that connection works flawlessly, CPU utilization per core hardly exceeds 5% and the CPUs work on their sun tan at pleasant 35 dogs 😀.

 

Also, I set The clock frequency to 1.5 GHz. Interestingly, Roon’s sound becomes a bit darker, more approaching Stylus’s laid back presentation.

[biosailor]

CPU load 100% happened again today!

 

I contacted Zeljko and he responded by saying (I cite):

 

,Roon is always doing things and I'm not surprised CPU can jump to 100%.
The problem is only if it stays at 100% during playback for a prolonged time.'

 

He adjusted CPU isolation and Roon never exceeded more than 10% CPU load on any of the 4 CPUs for the last three hours. The The isolation settings are attached.

 

 

[c-w]

Several new articles about Expert Settings appeared in Euphony Knowledge-base: https://euphony-audio.com/hesk/knowledgebase.php?category=8

There is a new thing for cpu isolation: irq isolation - maybe worth checking out..

[al2813]

I have been working for some months now out of a PC with a low power motherboard CPU (Jetway NF9M). I am thinking of changing those now for a higher power setup, but looking to get feedback from other Euphony users (my specific setup now is Roon core + Stylus EP). I have an HDPlex 300 LPS currently feeding 19v directly to a DC in jack the motherboard, will of course add a DC-ATX from HDplex. Happy to get recommendation for specific motherboard/CPU combos. 

[maxst67]

Hi, what configuration CPU isolation do you recommend with an Intel i5 8600T with 6 cores? Consider that: use only Stylus and I have version 102 (version 107 I don't like it) thanks

[ASRMichael]

6 hours ago, c-w said:

Several new articles about Expert Settings appeared in Euphony Knowledge-base: https://euphony-audio.com/hesk/knowledgebase.php?category=8

There is a new thing for cpu isolation: irq isolation - maybe worth checking out..

Does this look right? 
 

 

[bos3812]

5 hours ago, al2813 said:

I have been working for some months now out of a PC with a low power motherboard CPU (Jetway NF9M). I am thinking of changing those now for a higher power setup, but looking to get feedback from other Euphony users (my specific setup now is Roon core + Stylus EP). I have an HDPlex 300 LPS currently feeding 19v directly to a DC in jack the motherboard, will of course add a DC-ATX from HDplex. Happy to get recommendation for specific motherboard/CPU combos. 

Hi al2813,

 

maybe you are surprised but I worked the other way around. I went from a high powered motherboard to a low power motherboard and I can tell you that the low powered motherboard sounds a lot bettter. I first installed a Euphony trial on an old very low powered motherboard aka the Intel DN2800MT. After buying a license for Euphony I builded a new streamer and chose the Asus WS C246 Pro motherboard, a Xeon E-2224 processor, Apacer ECC memory and Intel optane 32 GB SSD. I also bought the JCat XE USB card, this all fed with the same PSU as yours, the HDPlex 300W. I came from a Sotm SMS-200 Ultra Neo and my new streamer was a lot better then the Sotm. After a while I got the feeling that my Intel DN2800MT had some properties I missed with the Asus and tried the DN2800MT again. And yes, it didn't have the resolution and detail of the Asus/Xeon, but I liked it a lot. It was more musical and it was fun to use.

 

I then decided to build a new streamer but as simple as possible, just to experiment. This time I chose a Gigabyte MB GA-IMB1900TN with integrated Celeron 1900 cpu, passive cooled and no DC-ATX needed. The JCat moved to this new streamer and I couldn't believe my ears when I played music with the Celeron based motherboard. It was a lot better then my much more expensive streamer. More resolution, more detail, a better soundstage, more palpable.

 

If you ask me how this is possible I only can guess and think it has to do with the much lower power it needs. Less power, less noise?? If you take a look at the models of Innuos and Antipodes then you see they also use low powered motherboards and I think not for economic reasons.

 

This is my experience and I am sure a lot of our forum members will not agree with me. I tried both, high and low powered motherboards and the last one won and not in a subtle way.

 

 

[Joerg D]

1 hour ago, bos3812 said:

Hi al2813,

 

maybe you are surprised but I worked the other way around. I went from a high powered motherboard to a low power motherboard and I can tell you that the low powered motherboard sounds a lot bettter. I first installed a Euphony trial on an old very low powered motherboard aka the Intel DN2800MT. After buying a license for Euphony I builded a new streamer and chose the Asus WS C246 Pro motherboard, a Xeon E-2224 processor, Apacer ECC memory and Intel optane 32 GB SSD. I also bought the JCat XE USB card, this all fed with the same PSU as yours, the HDPlex 300W. I came from a Sotm SMS-200 Ultra Neo and my new streamer was a lot better then the Sotm. After a while I got the feeling that my Intel DN2800MT had some properties I missed with the Asus and tried the DN2800MT again. And yes, it didn't have the resolution and detail of the Asus/Xeon, but I liked it a lot. It was more musical and it was fun to use.

 

I then decided to build a new streamer but as simple as possible, just to experiment. This time I chose a Gigabyte MB GA-IMB1900TN with integrated Celeron 1900 cpu, passive cooled and no DC-ATX needed. The JCat moved to this new streamer and I couldn't believe my ears when I played music with the Celeron based motherboard. It was a lot better then my much more expensive streamer. More resolution, more detail, a better soundstage, more palpable.

 

If you ask me how this is possible I only can guess and think it has to do with the much lower power it needs. Less power, less noise?? If you take a look at the models of Innuos and Antipodes then you see they also use low powered motherboards and I think not for economic reasons.

 

This is my experience and I am sure a lot of our forum members will not agree with me. I tried both, high and low powered motherboards and the last one won and not in a subtle way.

 

 

Hello,
I can confirm that. 
With my high-end streamers from Acousence, the developer also consciously worked with a low current consumption, probably to generate less negative influences.
The result is a very good musical sound without hardness.

Jörg

[edwardsean]

I never settled on the issue of high power vs. low power processors. When I worked my way through the "Novel way..." mega-thread, it seemed like users moved from low power to higher power processors. I also made this move to good effect. 

 

My understanding is that this shift does result in an increase in noise, but that it can be mitigated by other strategies, while the  gains provided by higher power CPUs, such as dynamics and density, are worthwhile. 

 

I am very open to learning more if anyone cares to chime in, especially in regard to their experiences with Euphony. 

 

 

[ASRMichael]

FWIF I’ve went from

 

SOTM

NUC

i7 7700T

i9 9900k

i9 10900k

 

Each time a jump in SQ. Big & bold dynamics. I’ve tried every frequency possible, high & low. 
 

I currently have all 20 threads at 5.0ghz. More or less fully open. 
 

This was only possible when I purchased 10a LPS for CPU. 
 

IMHO The most important part is the the quality of the LPS. 
 

Occasionally I use my LPS on my NUC to compare against my server. This gives me the reference point compared to any new purchases.  

[Tokyokyoto]

12 minutes ago, ASRMichael said:

FWIF I’ve went from

 

SOTM

NUC

i7 7700T

i9 9900k

i9 10900k

 

Each time a jump in SQ. Big & bold dynamics. I’ve tried every frequency possible, high & low. 
 

I currently have all 20 threads at 5.0ghz. More or less fully open. 
 

This was only possible when I purchased 10a LPS for CPU. 
 

IMHO The most important part is the the quality of the LPS. 
 

Occasionally I use my LPS on my NUC to compare against my server. This gives me the reference point compared to any new purchases.  

Where does using a separate endpoint in bridge mode come in?

[al2813]

I am happy I started this little discussion  resulting in these different opinions . My hunch (not scientific I admit) is that the big power system yields results if you also invest in other components most notably LPS. So if you spend 7-10k then you’re probably able to get further with a high power system. If you (like me) spend 2-3k, then potentially the low power variant can yield an interesting result. I suspect also that the other system components, the music people listen to, and their taste of « what is good » in SQ influence the end result. 

[edwardsean]

25 minutes ago, ASRMichael said:

FWIF I’ve went from

 

SOTM

NUC

i7 7700T

i9 9900k

i9 10900k

 

Each time a jump in SQ. Big & bold dynamics. I’ve tried every frequency possible, high & low. 
 

I currently have all 20 threads at 5.0ghz. More or less fully open. 
 

This was only possible when I purchased 10a LPS for CPU. 
 

IMHO The most important part is the the quality of the LPS. 
 

Occasionally I use my LPS on my NUC to compare against my server. This gives me the reference point compared to any new purchases.  

 

Given the choice between a NUC with a great power supply and an i9 with a lesser power supply what would you do?

 

I'm running a NUC7i7DNBE with Newton chasis, Apacer RAM, Optane, custom modified Farad Super 3 LPS into a FIBBR optic cable powered by a LPS1.2 into an Innuos Phoenix. 

 

I'm waiting on a new product that will take the power supply, and this kit, as far as it can go. My other option is to build a new server, but in order to power all the components I may need to settle for lesser power like an HDPlex. 

[ASRMichael]

1 hour ago, edwardsean said:

 

Given the choice between a NUC with a great power supply and an i9 with a lesser power supply what would you do?

 

I'm running a NUC7i7DNBE with Newton chasis, Apacer RAM, Optane, custom modified Farad Super 3 LPS into a FIBBR optic cable powered by a LPS1.2 into an Innuos Phoenix. 

 

I'm waiting on a new product that will take the power supply, and this kit, as far as it can go. My other option is to build a new server, but in order to power all the components I may need to settle for lesser power like an HDPlex. 

That was my point. Someone saying they yield better SQ from low power device is not how I would explain it. 
 

For example: and from experience, IMHO

 

- A NUC + Good LPS will sound fantastic

 

- High powered server (without a good LPS) will not sound as good as a NUC

 

- High powered server with good linear power supply will sound better than a NUC with good LPS. 
 

The take away I’ve experienced and many others is the more powerful CPU the better the LPS you need. I’m not saying you need a Sean Jacobs DC4. I have the DC3 which is lot cheaper. They’re also other options I’m sure. 
 

Then add what Ethernet card? USB card? Or Phoenix.
 

 

Not exact comparison but My NUC has OXCO clocks. I powered the NUC i7 with DC3, the clocks are also powered by a separate DC3 rail also. NUC running Euphony Stylus. If I recall I either connected my PF Ultra USB card to the NUC with M.2 adapter or was my JCAT card. Trying to make the comparison as close as possible. It sounded great, don’t get me wrong, but didn’t have the big bold fast dynamics my server has. Others of course could think otherwise. 
 

So please don’t think I’m saying NUCs don’t sound good, they do. 
 

To summarise 

 

Don’t go to high power server unless you are willing to spend a lot on LPS for each rail. If your budget doesn’t allow that, yes of course buy a low powered device but still power it with a good LPS. 
 

I’m not very good at explaining things, so hopefully users understand what I’m trying to say. 
 

last point to ensure this is relevant to Euphony. High power devices tend to come with more cores/threads which is a good thing for Core isolation with Euphony

[ASRMichael]

1 hour ago, al2813 said:

I am happy I started this little discussion  resulting in these different opinions . My hunch (not scientific I admit) is that the big power system yields results if you also invest in other components most notably LPS. So if you spend 7-10k then you’re probably able to get further with a high power system. If you (like me) spend 2-3k, then potentially the low power variant can yield an interesting result. I suspect also that the other system components, the music people listen to, and their taste of « what is good » in SQ influence the end result. 

I agree, however you don’t need to spend 7-10k. 
 

My LPS for ATX & CPU was around £2.5k and MB + CPU £1k..plus case+cables £0.5k

 

£4k total. You can add extra rails to power other things like Eth card or USB card for £250-£300per rail if i recall. 
 

Yes you can go higher but you can go lower also. Paul Hynes, Farad etc..

[ASRMichael]

2 hours ago, Tokyokyoto said:

Where does using a separate endpoint in bridge mode come in?

I use one box setup. 
 

I started with 2 box, home pc sending to NUC end point. But when I bought my LPS and powered my NUC. I got better results just using the NUC. I’ve stayed with one box setup since then.

 

I’ve even tested my server & my NUC as two box setup. All rails running from DC3 LPS. But lost the dynamics I get from my high power server. I also think using Euphony Stylus by itself rather than sending to Stylus will sound better. I recall pages in this thread what the differences are in functionality. 

[ASRMichael]

14 hours ago, bos3812 said:

Hi al2813,

 

maybe you are surprised but I worked the other way around. I went from a high powered motherboard to a low power motherboard and I can tell you that the low powered motherboard sounds a lot bettter. I first installed a Euphony trial on an old very low powered motherboard aka the Intel DN2800MT. After buying a license for Euphony I builded a new streamer and chose the Asus WS C246 Pro motherboard, a Xeon E-2224 processor, Apacer ECC memory and Intel optane 32 GB SSD. I also bought the JCat XE USB card, this all fed with the same PSU as yours, the HDPlex 300W. I came from a Sotm SMS-200 Ultra Neo and my new streamer was a lot better then the Sotm. After a while I got the feeling that my Intel DN2800MT had some properties I missed with the Asus and tried the DN2800MT again. And yes, it didn't have the resolution and detail of the Asus/Xeon, but I liked it a lot. It was more musical and it was fun to use.

 

I then decided to build a new streamer but as simple as possible, just to experiment. This time I chose a Gigabyte MB GA-IMB1900TN with integrated Celeron 1900 cpu, passive cooled and no DC-ATX needed. The JCat moved to this new streamer and I couldn't believe my ears when I played music with the Celeron based motherboard. It was a lot better then my much more expensive streamer. More resolution, more detail, a better soundstage, more palpable.

 

If you ask me how this is possible I only can guess and think it has to do with the much lower power it needs. Less power, less noise?? If you take a look at the models of Innuos and Antipodes then you see they also use low powered motherboards and I think not for economic reasons.

 

This is my experience and I am sure a lot of our forum members will not agree with me. I tried both, high and low powered motherboards and the last one won and not in a subtle way.

 

 

Hi, interesting view. How did you power your Xeon server?