Euphony Stylus - anyone tried Zotac CI660

[Gavin1977]

I have been reading lots of posts and am impressed that NUC's with high end linear power supplies, Audio Linux or Euphony are matching, or beating, the performance of high end servers (Innuos, Antipodes etc...).

 

NUC7I7DNBE is relatively rare / expensive, so has anyone tried Zotac Zbox CI660 (core i7) or CI620 (Core i3) - both based on the new 8th gen.

 

Seems like a good option for a Euphony Stylus install?

 

Like other i7 NUC's, the Paul Hynes SR4 is unlikely to power this, it would probably need Pauls new SR5-19 which is an 80W supply capable of 4A continuous, 30A transient - avail Sept.

 

Any thoughts on this and linear power supply choice?  I'm tempted by the CI660 as this would also work well as a roon server (rock if possible).

 

As well as linear power supply I would also probably fit a USB regen or TxUltra, but I don't think i'll go as far as clock upgrades in the NUC.

[Metnoc]

Hi,

I have the Zotac 620 computer, use it as a roon server running on win 10 with Fidelizer. I bought the 620 because it has two ethernet ports, I use the second ethernet port to connect directly to my sms200ultra.
Haven't tried changing power supply for the 620 and I haven't really compared it to other server. But I guess it sounds better than my mac mini.
Actually I prefer windows over AL with this server and I think it sounds best at 1,5 Ghz.

[Gavin1977]

Thanks for the feedback Metnoc - good spot with the second Ethernet port.

 

I have discovered a potential reason why some people are avoiding the new Intel 8th gen NUC's, including the Zotac, it's because the TDP of the processor is 25w compared to 15w of the prior generation.  So if you want to go for a linear power supply like me then this might mean extra cost. 

 

With a 25w TDP it's also more likely to have CPU throttling as a result (depending upon what you're doing) which is apparently bad for sound.

 

Obviously power supply to the NUC is not as large an issue if you have an SMS200 ultra in the chain, rather than direct to DAC as I am proposing.

 

I think I'm going to end up going for NUC7I7DNBE with a Paul Hynes SR5 (SR4 would probably do it, but SR5 has more head room and sounds better).

[Metnoc]

The i3-8130U cpu thats in my 620 zotac computer has a TDP of 15W, furthermore I've lowered the frequency to a steady 1.5 Ghz , have everything else at power save of turned off and Fidelizer in purist mode. These changes makes it sound quite a bit better than standard settings. For example 2.2 Ghz compared to 1.5 sounds not as "full", "warm" or "organic" which are attributes that I like.
AL gives more resolution compared to windows but at the expense of a very "thin" sound, therefore I prefer win10/fidelizer.
The direct ethernet connection to sms200ultra sounds better than by going the route of my tp link switch with ifi power.
There are obviously better servers than the zotac 620, but I guess it works kinda well for me.

If someone claims that the server does not matter for sound quality when you have an endpoint such as the sms200ultra, they probably don't have a system that's resolving enough to discern the servers impact. 

[Gavin1977]

Thanks Metoc - useful feedback.

[Gavin1977]

I now have my NUC7I7DNBE.  I've compared two configurations - Roon ROCK (installed to Optane H10 SSD) and also Euphony Stylus booting via USB (for easy comparison).  All music files 16/44 wav or flac.  I haven't tried Audio Linux yet - that's next.

 

There is a massive difference between the two!  Roon is clearly inferior in terms of audio quality, it sounds what some people might associate with a poor quality 'digital source' flatter, less life and quite significantly less detail.  To be honest I would be disappointed if I'd just got the NUC7I7DNBE to act as a Roon ROCK as it sounds no better than playing direct via USB from my Macbook Pro in this config.

 

I would encourage people to try Euphony even if you haven't yet purchased a linear power supply.  I have a Paul Hynes SR5 on order, but I am already extremely pleased with the NUC7I7DNBE/Euphony combo even before this addition.

 

One thing I noticed is that the stylus app automatically upscales 16/44 and maps it to 16/388 - the maximum resolution my Naim DAC V1 will accept via USB. 

 

This is also the first time on a piece of equipment I can clearly hear the difference between different sample rates and the effects of upscaling.  I also tried HQplayer upsampling - really easy to enable in Euphony, just a single click no other install needed - listening at 24/384.  The HQplayer playback engine is very nice, but I have to say that I think the default playback engine in Euphony that applies the mapping to 16/388 sounds the better of the two to me.  It's slightly more incisive - easy for people to play with the two and instant switching allows for quick comparison.

 

Of course, you can also use Euphony as an end point for your Roon database if you're partiqularly wedded to Roon - but of course that would be an additional cost.  You could also use Roon to play to a HQPlayer Server, I think that would probably narrow the gap.

 

One thing I do need to work out is the fact that the playback engine in Euphony Stylus (despite being fixed volume) outputs at a lower volume than Roon.  I have to run the Naim V1 >50-60% volume, when usually the same SPL is achieved at a much lower level at the preamp.

 

Will try Audio Linux and compare that in the next few days.

[Gavin1977]

Solution: Default software volume is set to 50%.
Select Stylus as music service and in Settings select Volume control: none. This will set volume to 100%. Then you can go back to selecting Roon and then you can control volume with Roon. You can even select 100% volume in Roon too and leave volume control to your digital preamplifier. This is best for sound quality. Software volume controls often degrade sound.

[Gavin1977]

I've purchased audiolinux - good that they ship both the lxqt and headless versions to you for a single payment of $49 - so pretty pleased there.  I still haven't had chance to test it.

 

In the meantime I've done some more testing of Euphony vs Roon ROCK - I purchased a trial subscription of Tidal and have been comparing Tidal sourced tracks vs local rips of my CDs.  What I find really interesting is that Tidal within Roon narrows the audio quality gap somewhat with Euphony - there are differences, but I would find it difficult to separate them easily.  Roon on a Roon ROCK, plus Tidal, is a really compelling offering if you can fork out the cash.  This differs to my finding with Euphony, where the local files sound ever so slightly better than streams via Tidal - streaming via Tidal in Euphony was just slightly softened in sound.  Both pieces of software worked flawlessly.

 

One thing I have noticed about Euphony is that it's very power hungry on the Macbook Pro (2013 i5) that I run it on - battery being drained quickly and fans audible.  Maybe the Macbook pro is being used to do all of the heavy lifting.  This one aspect I don't like about Euphony.  It is still my belief that Euphony is the best sounding, but the gap in audio quality is not that big if you compare with high res via Tidal in Roon.

 

Interesting!

[AnotherSpin]

44 minutes ago, Gavin1977 said:

I've purchased audiolinux - good that they ship both the lxqt and headless versions to you for a single payment of $49 - so pretty pleased there.  I still haven't had chance to test it.

 

In the meantime I've done some more testing of Euphony vs Roon ROCK - I purchased a trial subscription of Tidal and have been comparing Tidal sourced tracks vs local rips of my CDs.  What I find really interesting is that Tidal within Roon narrows the audio quality gap somewhat with Euphony - there are differences, but I would find it difficult to separate them easily.  Roon on a Roon ROCK, plus Tidal, is a really compelling offering if you can fork out the cash.  This differs to my finding with Euphony, where the local files sound ever so slightly better than streams via Tidal - streaming via Tidal in Euphony was just slightly softened in sound.  Both pieces of software worked flawlessly.

 

One thing I have noticed about Euphony is that it's very power hungry on the Macbook Pro (2013 i5) that I run it on - battery being drained quickly and fans audible.  Maybe the Macbook pro is being used to do all of the heavy lifting.  This one aspect I don't like about Euphony.  It is still my belief that Euphony is the best sounding, but the gap in audio quality is not that big if you compare with high res via Tidal in Roon.

 

Interesting!

 

Just bought AL headless for $49 (both headless and ixqt were offered for "special price of $74"). Are you sure you got both for $49 only? 

[rickca]

1 hour ago, AnotherSpin said:

Are you sure you got both for $49 only?

I got both lxqt and headless for $49, but that was in November 2018.  I think Piero has raised his prices since then.

[Gavin1977]

Yep - definitely sure, $49 for both. Lucky me.

 

Is the difference between lxqt and headless clearly audible, or is it marginal?  I'm just deciding which version to run.

[AnotherSpin]

6 hours ago, Gavin1977 said:

Yep - definitely sure, $49 for both. Lucky me.

 

Is the difference between lxqt and headless clearly audible, or is it marginal?  I'm just deciding which version to run.

 

How long ago?)

[Gavin1977]

3 days ago

[AnotherSpin]

1 hour ago, Gavin1977 said:

3 days ago

 

interesting)

 

[AnotherSpin]

1 hour ago, Gavin1977 said:

3 days ago

 

I mailed Piero and he answered you received two images by an error and should delete one... Did he ask you about the same?

[hifi25nl]

...I have sent for error 2 emails, one for lxqt and one for headless. The total special official price for both is 49+25 $

If you want to use both you should pay the extra 25 $ otherwise you should delete one of the images. Thanks.

[Gavin1977]

@hifi25nl... will of course sort you out once I've finished testing.  FYI here's my latest finds (in case they get lost in the forum post elsewhere):

 

 

[sb6]

Thought I'd add my 2 cents WRT Euphony sound compared to my Windows Server 2019. I have a fairly well software optimized (by me) Windows Server 2019 DIY Music PC using HQPlayer and Roon along with an SMS200 Neo. HQplayer stand - alone is better than Roon playing through HQPlayer and Roon + Roon is worse than either. I installed Euphony onto a USB stick and it easily booted to the PC (good job Euphony). After configuring Euphony for Roon (no HQplayer) the sound was pretty bad, to be frank. Immediately I could hear the lack of transparency and energy. This was also compared to Roon stand - alone in Windows Server 2019. My best sounding configuration: HQPlayer installed off a RAMdisk along with songs played from memory absolutely demolishes Euphony with Roon. My preliminary conclusion is - Either my Windows Server 2019 system is significantly better optimized than Euphony or there are some tunings in Euphony I'm currently unaware of. However, considering I completed the final step to fully install Euphony and I presume that optimizes and minimizes the kernel footprint I presume that's mostly it in terms of tuning. Hopefully I'm wrong.