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Euphony OS w/Stylus player setup and issues thread


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1 hour ago, edwardsean said:

Okay, okay, okay, I've converted to 421.

 

I kept playing with 421 and what finally did it was that I disabled Ramroot. That alleviated the tightness I was experiencing in 421's presentation. 421 has this incredible precision and definiteness where 102 can image overly soft and diffuse. However, with Ramroot engaged, the sound feels like the screws are overtightened and it feels stiff.  I don't like giving up Ramroot, but once I unloaded it, a natural sense of flow returned. 

 

I still long for more of 102's fullness, larger low end and staging. Also, I am uncomfortable losing Ramroot from a technical standpoint. I had to remind myself that the only that counts is the end result sound. Well, you can't have everything. This is still quite a good net win, and I'm glad to be going forward with Euphony!

 

 

I too felt the tightness or more mechanical presentation but since I use tubes, I just reduced the bias current of the tubes and voila!

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My preferred Euphony version remains 217.  My DAC is actually a CD/SACD player (Marantz SA-10), so every streamer or Euphony versions I tried, I compare its SQ with internal rendering by SA-10, either playing discs or from USB thumb drive attached behind, which I consider my reference SQ since there are no other external components involved, everything happened inside SA-10.

 

217 comes really close to matching the SQ of SA-10 rendering, but not the other Euphony versions.  My streamer: DIY multi-rail LPSU powering ASRock J5040-ITX Pentium Silver with turbo boost turned off.  Separate 5V rails for SSDs.  Apacer consumer grade RAM, 32GB total.  I use Stylus, playing music from SSD only.

Music server builder

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1 minute ago, Joerg D said:

Hello

I have reduced the Ethernet speed to 100 Mbit in the Expert Setup. The SQ has improved somewhat. The sound has become a bit finer, more relaxed and more musical.

 

-s eth0 speed 100 duplex full autoneg off

 

Jörg

The problem is buffering tracks take so long with 100mbit. Have you tried disconnect network option? Works well for me. Add album or playlist and sit back and enjoy with network connected. 

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20 hours ago, edwardsean said:

Okay, okay, okay, I've converted to 421.

 

I kept playing with 421 and what finally did it was that I disabled Ramroot. That alleviated the tightness I was experiencing in 421's presentation. 421 has this incredible precision and definiteness where 102 can image overly soft and diffuse. However, with Ramroot engaged, the sound feels like the screws are overtightened and it feels stiff.  I don't like giving up Ramroot, but once I unloaded it, a natural sense of flow returned. 

 

I still long for more of 102's fullness, larger low end and staging. Also, I am uncomfortable losing Ramroot from a technical standpoint. I had to remind myself that the only that counts is the end result sound. Well, you can't have everything. This is still quite a good net win, and I'm glad to be going forward with Euphony!

 

 

I appreciate your descriptions of how the sound is evolving through versions. You improved without (!) ramroot, so now sound quality depends less on RAM.

To better understand, would you mind sharing what type of RAM you are (not with 421 !) using and also what other type of memory to run Stylus is attached to your mobo? In the situation above you do streaming, SSD or NAS? I looked in your setup details but you did not mention. If you did somewhere else please link to that part of the thread. Thanks.

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I am using 421 and whilst appreciative of its detail, I too find it very etched. I tried disabling ramroot and was very surprised by how much the sound was 'dumbed down' but easier to listen to. I will have to alternate to decide which I prefer, but it does feel wrong to compromise performance to gain listenability. 

I am also using Apacer ram and am Optane drive.

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22 hours ago, edwardsean said:

 

I'm using Apacer RAM and an Optane drive, so I very much want to use Ramroot. I'm still hoping for a version that has greater fluidity and space (esp. soundstage width), and the added performance of Ramroot. 

 

The great thing about 102 is the way the sound flows freely, unrestricted into an expansive space. My ideal audio components are able to do this while occupying that space with dense and precise images.

Thanks. For these listening sessions are you playing local files or streaming files?

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11 hours ago, edwardsean said:

Always local. I have a Tidal account for exploring, but whenever I find something I love, I purchase the file. 

That's what I thought, same here. Best results with local files. In my case all FLAC on a Synology NAS +LPS > switch > 30ft Cat7 > streamer.

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10 hours ago, di-fi said:

That's what I thought, same here. Best results with local files. In my case all FLAC on a Synology NAS +LPS > switch > 30ft Cat7 > streamer.

 

Have you tried Wav/AIFF instead of FLAC? Even though flac is lossless compression, I do find uncompressed files perform better. I’m not sure whether that’s due to artifacts at the compression stage, decompression stage, or both. Some think that it’s due to the noise of the extra processing load of decompressing the files. So, if they have flacs they decompress them offline and store them as wav for playback. 

 

It’s worth the experiment unless you’ve already ascertained that it makes no difference for yourself. 

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6 minutes ago, edwardsean said:

 

Have you tried Wav/AIFF instead of FLAC? Even though flac is lossless compression, I do find uncompressed files perform better. I’m not sure whether that’s due to artifacts at the compression stage, decompression stage, or both. Some think that it’s due to the noise of the extra processing load of decompressing the files. So, if they have flacs they decompress them offline and store them as wav for playback. 

 

It’s worth the experiment unless you’ve already ascertained that it makes no difference for yourself. 

Thank you for pointing this out. I did try to compare FLAC vs. WAV/AIFF in the past, downloaded both versions from the same album (Bandcamp), but it was not conclusive. Also my system might not be resolving enough. I will give it a try again, my system evolved a little over time, it could be worth it. 

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Try XiSRC. As you know, not all sample rate converters/encoders are the same. 

 

XiSRC was fantastic for the low price, and there is a Mac and Win version. Now that the company, Xivero, is no longer in business, I think it may just be free. You can find download links online. 

 

It can be a bit slow compared to the common free algorithms out there, but I think more precise.  

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On 5/4/2021 at 11:56 PM, edwardsean said:

Try XiSRC. As you know, not all sample rate converters/encoders are the same. 

 

XiSRC was fantastic for the low price, and there is a Mac and Win version. Now that the company, Xivero, is no longer in business, I think it may just be free. You can find download links online. 

 

It can be a bit slow compared to the common free algorithms out there, but I think more precise.  

Interesting! In my quest to optimize local files to play with Euphony Stylus I tried XiSRC (free*). The same company provides MusicScope (also free**) to examine the characteristics of files. MusicScope allowed me to visually compare the original FLAC (33Mb) vs, the WAV provided by Bandcamp (50.4Mb) and the WAV I converted myself from FLAC with XiSRC (also 50.4Mb) . In MusicScope all 3 look identical. Soundwise, at first listen, I can not confirm a difference between the versions of the selected file. 

 

This might go beyond the subject here (you can also PM me) and I would like to explore more, but are there any specific settings in XiSRC that you can refer to for optimizing/improving the WAV file vs. the original FLAC?

 

*https://sourceforge.net/projects/xivero-audio-tools/    **https://getwinpcsoft.com/MusicScope-3870859/download/

 

 

spectr1toWAVXiSRC.jpg

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12 hours ago, di-fi said:

Interesting! In my quest to optimize local files to play with Euphony Stylus I tried XiSRC (free*). The same company provides MusicScope (also free**) to examine the characteristics of files. MusicScope allowed me to visually compare the original FLAC (33Mb) vs, the WAV provided by Bandcamp (50.4Mb) and the WAV I converted myself from FLAC with XiSRC (also 50.4Mb) . In MusicScope all 3 look identical. Soundwise, at first listen, I can not confirm a difference between the versions of the selected file. 

 

This might go beyond the subject here (you can also PM me) and I would like to explore more, but are there any specific settings in XiSRC that you can refer to for optimizing/improving the WAV file vs. the original FLAC?

 

*https://sourceforge.net/projects/xivero-audio-tools/    **https://getwinpcsoft.com/MusicScope-3870859/download/

 

 

spectr1toWAVXiSRC.jpg

 

It’s a really simple process. You should just keep the same sample rate and bit depth. You can leave ISP off. That’s it. 

 

I have to say, my own suspicion is that the difference has to do with the added load on the CPU to decompress the file from flac to Wav during playback. I can clearly hear a difference with flac being more smeared and mushy. But, you will need a fairly resolving/ low noise system to detect these differences. In your system, if you have to strain to hear any difference, please, don’t let this distract you from enjoying flac files!

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On 3/20/2021 at 5:16 AM, flkin said:

If your motherboard allows, try changing speed and voltage of the ram I had good results doing this. 

Just ordered this Apacer RAM, doubt I can make use of the higher speed (3200 ) in an 8i7BEH but if it  behaves better for audio, thats what matters. Will

report on results, this is more available than the lower speed Apacer DDR4 SODIMM (2400)

 

https://www.mouser.com/ProductDetail/908-D22.27261S.001

Regards,

Dave

 

Audio system

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29 minutes ago, davide256 said:

Just ordered this Apacer RAM

 

These are pretty high latencies:

MHz: 3200
CL: 22
Calculated nanoseconds:
13.75

I prefer RAM with CL latency up to 8.8ns. Probably not available from the Apacer brand. justmy2cents

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1 hour ago, StreamFidelity said:

 

These are pretty high latencies:

MHz: 3200
CL: 22
Calculated nanoseconds:
13.75

I prefer RAM with CL latency up to 8.8ns. Probably not available from the Apacer brand. justmy2cents

Mehh... I'm looking for lower electrical noise feeding back into the PS bus and screwing with USB out. Speed isn't relevant unless I use

HQPlayer and using HQPlayer in NUC USB out server creates its own noise issues.

Regards,

Dave

 

Audio system

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