Euphony OS w/Stylus player setup and issues thread

[Exocer]

33 minutes ago, NanoSword said:

Today I started to experiment using  PGGB with Euphony .  I feel it is interesting tool for upsampling but I have some issue euphone is shortens the song especially long song . I need to figure out  the reason for shortens the song.

 

PGGB brings benefit to the sound  I feel the timing is more accurate more natural sound  with black background and reduce some of the harshness with better bass and amazing vocal . 

Which DAC? Did you try playing the file with HQPlayer (no shaping/upsample)instead of Stylus?

[Exocer]

2 hours 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

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

[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! 

[NanoSword]

1 hour ago, NanoSword said:

Today I started to experiment using  PGGB with Euphony .  I feel it is interesting tool for upsampling but I have some issue euphone is shortens the song especially long song . I need to figure out  the reason for shortens the song.

 

PGGB brings benefit to the sound  I feel the timing is more accurate more natural sound  with black background and reduce some of the harshness with better bass and amazing vocal . 

Z advised me to install new update he is correct no more shortens with any song .

[Speedy381]

Great timing. I have been waiting for the last firmware for my PSaudio Directwave and just before it lands I see Euphony has the latest version. The last few weeks have been an odd time for me; I did not like the harshness and lack of musicality of the 117 so went back to 108.

However I had been playing around with cables and supports to calm 117 and was less impressed with 108 than I had been initially. So back to 117 and play around with irqs, core isolation settings and small adjustments in speaker position to get a sound I could listen to.

I was a little trepidatious over installing the latest update, but straight off it has every quality I was missing. Detailed, smooth and just enough warmth and that's with every setting unaltered from my playing with 117. Very satisfied.

That's without the new firmware to the DAC, which is rumoured to be a big step forward. Will that alter the balance again? At least I know Euphony is behaving now.

 

[NanoSword]

I was playing with 3 versions 108 & 216 & 217 I find the sound unnatural at all when this two ver 216&217 installed in my system . But it is different when install 108 & 217 in my system I find the sound still natural, I don't know if I imagine that but I feel the previous ver impacting the sound somehow I don't know so I decided to keep old ver as part of my system if there's new update I will downgrade my ver to 108 then I will install the new one .

 

I am using now 108 & 421.

[Chopin75]

So the 421 version is supposed to sound better ? Anyone having issues with DSD ? I have had pops reemerging recently with the older version.

[drjimwillie]

How do I read or write to a hard drive in Euphony?  How do I even see a hard drive in Euphony?

my motherboard is older and does not have a M2 slot. I have a 32 GB Optane M2 memory and a PCIE adapter card. I would like to see if I can use it like a hard drive to load some songs, but I am not sure where or how to look. 
 

Thank you
 

[Chopin75]

4 minutes ago, drjimwillie said:

How do I read or write to a hard drive in Euphony?  How do I even see a hard drive in Euphony?

my motherboard is older and does not have a M2 slot. I have a 32 GB Optane M2 memory and a PCIE adapter card. I would like to see if I can use it like a hard drive to load some songs, but I am not sure where or how to look. 
 

Thank you
 

I am not sure what you mean. Are you talking about booting from an external USB vs loaded Euphony in a "hard drive" like a traditional internal solid state drive ? I put my Euphony in my 64 GB Optane M2 but it does need M2 Slot (though I think you might be able to use the Adaptor card) I load some songs in there. But not a lot of space. I just delete them when I am done. You can also load via network drive I think but I just remotely load into the Optane via file manager. Try not to occupy > 70 % of the Optane drive as beyond that might affect sound it seems. 

[Lukasluis]

Case temperature is noticeably hotter after the updrade to 421. I'll open a ticket with Euphony Support.

[Lukasluis]

421 is smoother sounding than 417 but soundstage of 417 is wider and deeper and imaging is better too with the previous release. 

 

While on it, I played around with the CPU Isolation and Interrupt assignments. Here's what I ended up with my NUC 8 logical cores CPU.

 

CPU Isolation:

0-1 stylus 2-3 gstp 4-6 

 

Interrupt CPU assignment: 

xhci_hcd = Core 7 (for USB port connected to DAC)

eth0 = Core 2 (for Ethernet port)

nvme* = distributed to either Core 0 or Core 1 (nvme0q0 to nvme0q8)  

 

I did not assign dedicated Interrupt cores to the following as interrupt counts for them is insignicant in my system:

   

timer

rtc0

acpi

INT34BB:00

i801_smbus

PCIe PME

 

The above gives the balance between resolution, attack/decay and fullness to the sound. Giving a lot of cores to gstp (e.g. 0-2 gstp 3-7) resulted in ultra resolution but losses on overall musicality. I will let the system settle in and will revisit the settings but for now I'm enjoying this new version of Euphony.  

[Joerg D]

Hello, 
My update was smooth.
The temperature of the CPU is unchanged.
The sound has got more contours than the 108, deep bass , but not the coolness of the 117 .

 

Jörg
 

[TheAttorney]

Update on my IRQ testing:

 

From start point of Euphony 117 and flkin's Core Isolation recommendation of

 

    0 systemd 1 nfm 2 dhcpcd 2 dbus-daemon 2 haveged 2 lvmetad 2 avahi-daemon 2 gstp 3-5 stylus 6-7

 

I made the following consecutive steps:

 

1. Over-allocated gstp to 2-6 (sharing with its neighbours at either end).

2. Moved USB IRQ to a less busy, gstp-only, core (from 6 to 3) and moved WiFi IRQ away from gstp to stylus on 7.

3. Fully isolated USB IRQ by setting systemd to 0, and USB IRQ to 1 (Isolating different cores gave no obvious improvement over this).

 

Resulting in my final configuration of:

 

   0 systemd 0 nfm 2 dhcpcd 2 dbus-daemon 2 haveged 2 lvmetad 2 avahi-daemon 2 gstp 2-6 stylus 6-7 irq/131 1 irq/135 7

 

Each of those steps increased vividness (a combination of clarity, dynamics, focus etc) to generally good effect, but also caused a bit of brightness to start creeping in, most obviously noted in over-bright recordings like Feist's The Reminder. Ultra clear, but with a somewhat glassy presentation that was not welcome. Toning down the vividness wasn't the answer because the presentation then seemed to get more smeared and flat.

 

I was about to report that my WIP was still not conclusive - when new version 421 dropped in. Well. it may have been wishful thinking, but those remaining brightness concerns seemed to magically disappear. All good and, for the nth time in the last few weeks, my system has never sounded better 🙂 .

 

And I noted a further slight improvement by changing my previous favourite CPU speed from 1.2 GHz to 1.3 GHz. Yes, yes, I know... desperate measures for desperate times! But it's a reminder that all these configurations can impact each other.

 

I also noticed that 421 has a new feature (press power button) to interrupt the offline play feature. I was somewhat skeptical that this would work, but it did on my NUC (could well be h/w dependent). So the offline play feature is now much more user-friendly although, strangely, I don't hear any improvements on my system when I disable WiFi when playing buffered tracks. 

 

PS. No core temperature difference for me with new version 421.

 

[bos3812]

I just installed the new version and I only can say don't hessitate. It's the best version ever. I came from 108 because I did not like 217 and went back to 108. After Roon updated from 7 to 8 I liked the last version of Roon better than 108 because it was more palpable so mostly I listened to Roon core. But now Euphony is back on track and a lot better than Roon. Well done Zeljko!!

[sunny_time_99]

Hi,

for me its just the opposite.
217 was the most involving. I like the bass of 421. The rest is too smooth for my taste. I feel it a little bit boring.

 

Regards and happy listening

 

Sunny

[maxst67]

WOW ...Great Zeljco, you have passed yourself with the new version, sound to say the least amaliant. Good boy

[bos3812]

33 minutes ago, sunny_time_99 said:

Hi,

for me its just the opposite.
217 was the most involving. I like the bass of 421. The rest is too smooth for my taste. I feel it a little bit boring.

 

Regards and happy listening

 

Sunny

Hi Sunny, the result of the update depends greatly of your installation of course. However there were some complaints about version 217 which was to sharp and flat sounding. It also was for me, so I went back to 108. If  your installation is on the lean side I can imagine you like 217. And it is also a matter of taste of course. I spoke for myself when I said it was the best version ever. For me the version is not to smooth or boring. On the contrary, for me it's very lively and real sounding.

[davide256]

On 4/17/2021 at 6:20 AM, al2813 said:

 

Interesting one. My HDPlex is the first "serious" LPS I got for my server. The previous was a home-grown LPS installed inside the case by the Dutch store who originally built it. The store owner described it as "high end", but the HDPlex outclassed it by a massive distance. Your comment that the HDplex is better than a Farad (which is considered as a very reputable brand) is interesting. 

The Farad is a great supply if you need 3A or less... liked the one I had far better than an HDPlex200W. But it does not have the current output to run an i7 NUC at full throttle which the HDPlex 200/300W supplies will.

[auricgoldfinger]

I don't know what "full throttle" means, but I never experienced any issues with my Farads powering an i7 NUC.  Once of them ran at maximum frequency.  I don't recall if turbo was on or off.

[davide256]

37 minutes ago, auricgoldfinger said:

I don't know what "full throttle" means, but I never experienced any issues with my Farads powering an i7 NUC.  Once of them ran at maximum frequency.  I don't recall if turbo was on or off.

Using a 12V Farad my i7 NUC would not boot with Turbo on. Was yours a 19V?

[auricgoldfinger]

Just now, davide256 said:

Using a 12V Farad my i7 NUC would not boot with Turbo on. Was yours a 19V?

 

Yes, both of mine are 19V

[drjimwillie]

16 hours ago, Chopin75 said:

I am not sure what you mean. Are you talking about booting from an external USB vs loaded Euphony in a "hard drive" like a traditional internal solid state drive ? I put my Euphony in my 64 GB Optane M2 but it does need M2 Slot (though I think you might be able to use the Adaptor card) I load some songs in there. But not a lot of space. I just delete them when I am done. You can also load via network drive I think but I just remotely load into the Optane via file manager. Try not to occupy > 70 % of the Optane drive as beyond that might affect sound it seems. 

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 

[al2813]

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....

[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