Shootout at the Linux Corral: AudioLinux vs Euphony

5 hours ago, Holzohr said:

 

Hi Bob, thank you very much for this thread. I downloaded Euphony last night and was testing Roon core with HQPlayer embedded. I must say I liked what I heard but it seems my USB stick is not made for this kind of continuous operation. I still want to give Euphony a try as endpoint for Roon and HQPlayer.

I buought licenses and am setting up on faster storage..

1 hour ago, jkelly said:

Do you know if I can connect the Euphony server to my NAS music folder instead of a USB or internal storage drive? 

Hang on for later will take some screen shots.  The answer is yes it is in the UI.  I have not tested it.

6 hours ago, Holzohr said:

 

Hi, I fear you will have to reset the BIOS by clearing the CMOS. I had to do the same a couple of months ago. I thought that activating fast boot is a good thing. Maybe it is as long as you don' t need to enter the BIOS. 🙂

 

Do you recall what you did to clear BIOS settings? The online NUC documentation wasn't helpful there. There is a BIOS security jumper but nothing that I could find saying one

could use it to reset to defaults.

51 minutes ago, davide256 said:

Do you recall what you did to clear BIOS settings? The online NUC documentation wasn't helpful there. There is a BIOS security jumper but nothing that I could find saying one

could use it to reset to defaults.

You can reset to defaults within the BIOS.

3 hours ago, jkelly said:

Do you know if I can connect the Euphony server to my NAS music folder instead of a USB or internal storage drive? 

Yes. I have done this in the past.

3 hours ago, jkelly said:

Do you know if I can connect the Euphony server to my NAS music folder instead of a USB or internal storage drive? 

See my setup thready here:  

YES

54 minutes ago, dc-audiogeek said:

I used Euphony Stylus v1 as my main player for a while, but then decided I wanted to upsample via HQPlayer. Euphony has that option baked in.

Can you expand on this?  Cuz you ended with "Then Euphony Stylus v3 was released, and my system sounds even better. ".  What are you using to choose music (i.e GUI) and what sort of architecture/setup are you using HQplayer (embedded with NAA, etc)?   Thx

2 hours ago, bobfa said:

You can reset to defaults within the BIOS.

infinite loop here... to change defaults you have to be able to get into the NUC  BIOS. Every other PC I've had since 1992 had a way to reset  to defaults if you

had a problem that didn't allow you to get into BIOS because of  user BIOS changes, usually a  clear CMOS jumper.... having to acquire a wired keyboard would be my

method of last resort.

10 minutes ago, davide256 said:

having to acquire a wired keyboard would be my

method of last resort.

I think only a few NUC"s can have cmos cleared using jumper method. A cheap wired keyboard / f2 method should get you back into bios.

43 minutes ago, ted_b said:

Can you expand on this?  Cuz you ended with "Then Euphony Stylus v3 was released, and my system sounds even better. ".  What are you using to choose music (i.e GUI) and what sort of architecture/setup are you using HQplayer (embedded with NAA, etc)?   Thx

Each new version of Euphony Stylus has better sound quality than the previous version [ V1(good)<V2(very good)<VS3 (great)].

I originally used the Euphony PTS server/Euphony Stylus software (with a built-in 2GB SSD) to connect the server directly to my DAC to play music. Euphony Stylus has HQPlayer built-in as an option (in its audio player) and is Roon ready. If you want to use the built-in HQPlayer option, you can use it for 20 minutes at a time and then restart your music to get another 20 minutes. I purchased an embedded Linux version of HQPlayer to be able to use it without interruption. It's a little pricey, but worth it if you're going to stick with the default music player. You can also stream Tidal and Qobuz through the Euphony Stylus player.

Now I have Euphony Styus set up as a NAA, controlled by my Mac Mini, which runs HQPlayer desktop and Roon server. I use Roon remote on my iPad to control music choices going from Roon to HQPlayer to my Euphony PTS server. The sound quality I get through my headphone amp is truly excellent.

Hope that answers your questions!

Here's what the Euphony Stylus music player interface looks like, courtesy of @bobfa.

41 minutes ago, dc-audiogeek said:

Now I have Euphony Styus set up as a NAA, controlled by my Mac Mini, which runs HQPlayer desktop and Roon server.

Sorry I'm still confused.  As a long time HQPlayer user (I started the embedded thread) I am wondering what you mean.  I was told that Stylus is Euphony's music player, yet you describe using Roon (as library manager and ipad gui) to HQplayer (as upsampler) and then running HQplayer NAA on the PTS box.  Where does Stylus (a music player) even fit in here?  How did their going to Stylus V3 affect your sound if what you use is Roon and HQplayer?  You show Stylus as a GUI, but it's not what you use, right?  You use Roon.  Thx

12 minutes ago, ted_b said:

Sorry I'm still confused.  As a long time HQPlayer user (I started the embedded thread) I am wondering what you mean.  I was told that Stylus is Euphony's music player, yet you describe using Roon (as library manager and ipadgui) to HQplayer (as upsampler) and then running HQplayer NAA on the PTS box.  Where does Stylus (a music player) even fit in here?  How did their going to Stylus V3 affect your sound if what you use is Roon and HQplayer?  You show Stylus as a GUI, but it's now what you use, right?  You use Roon.  Thx

You can use Euphony OS with either their Stylus music player or Roon or several other configs

3 minutes ago, ted_b said:

Sorry I'm still confused.  As a long time HQPlayer user (I started the embedded thread) I am wondering what you mean.  I was told that Stylus is Euphony's music player, yet you describe using Roon (as library manager and ipad gui) to HQplayer (as upsampler) and then running HQplayer NAA on the PTS box.  Where does Stylus (a music player) even fit in here?  How did their going to Stylus V3 affect your sound if what you use is Roon and HQplayer?  You show Stylus as a GUI, but it's now what you use, right?  You use Roon.  Thx

It's confusing because Euphony uses the word Stylus for both the operating system and the music player. I tried to differentiate between the two by referring to a Stylus music player app.

The option to use the Stylus OS as a NAA is one of the options for how you configure the Stylus OS server.

Even when I use Roon and not the Euphony Stylus music player as my source, the Euphony Stylus OS processes the incoming stream with its behind the scenes magic (via the OS, a very light dedicated Linux software not running any other apps like Windows does) before sending that stream to the DAC. The stream that comes out of the OS and goes to my DAC sounds better than using a direct connection to my computer.

Does that help clarify things?

7 minutes ago, bobfa said:

You can use Euphony OS with either their Stylus music player or Roon or several other configs

 

 

 

I get that.  It's his use of Stylus that has me confused.

7 minutes ago, dc-audiogeek said:

It's confusing because Euphony uses the word Stylus for both the operating system and the music player. I tried to differentiate between the two by referring to a Stylus music player app.

 

The option to use the Stylus OS as a NAA is one of the options for how you configure the Stylus OS server.

 

Even when I use Roon and not the Euphony Stylus music player as my source, the Euphony Stylus OS processes the incoming stream with its behind the scenes magic (via the OS, a very light dedicated Linux software not running any other apps like Windows does) before sending that stream to the DAC. The stream that comes out of the OS and goes to my DAC sounds better than using a direct connection to my computer.

 

Does that help clarify things?

thx...yes.

1 hour ago, bobfa said:

See my setup thready here:  

 

YES

Thanks.  I can only get to the root of the NAS('s) and not to the actual audio folder - I'll figure it out.

I didn't want to mess up my 2 NUC AL setup - so I wrote the Euphony .dmg file to a 32gig MSATA drive,

using a MSATA - USB adapter, and put it into my old DN2800MT.  So far so good! TY!

1 minute ago, jkelly said:

 

Thanks.  I can only get to the root of the NAS('s) and not to the actual audio folder - I'll figure it out.

 

I didn't want to mess up my 2 NUC AL setup - so I wrote the Euphony .dmg file to a 32gig MSATA drive,

using a MSATA - USB adapter, and put it into my old DN2800MT.  So far so good! TY!

I did it with the path section of the library setup right next to the server name.

2 hours ago, bobfa said:

I did it with the path section of the library setup right next to the server name.

Got it - thanks.  I am using Roon, upsampling to 352.8K, with the DN2800MT board and definitely sounds good.

Early on - seems to have much more low frequency energy than my Al/NUC setup.

The magic is there...not sure better magic.  Time will tell!

I completed some listening using the endpoint as a server.  I am not going to comment yet on how that sounded.  I have to test Roon first!

So Busy day and no REAL WORK was done.  OH well, I did wash the floors and vacuum so my wife will be happy.

I have my server running E3 off of an NVMEe stick. The server is not bridged yet.  I have a fiber link to my UBNT switch.  The other fiber port goes to the system.  The endpoint is set up as before.  Fiber to the TLS switch to the NUC.  

Over on the E3 OS setup thread, I have some OS and APP Notes.  There were bumps in the road.  My son and Only have about an hour of listening and a fully detailed report is not ready yet.

>>>>PLEASE SOMEONE ELSE TRY THIS>>>>

>>>>Do not scroll down if you want to avoid early spoilers

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SPOILER ALERT: OMFG

Listen to  Joe Ford "Distilled", BT "Omega",  Uncle Lucius "Keep The Wolves Away" in a before and after mode if you can!

Bob

23 hours ago, davide256 said:

will give it a whirl as server on NUC7PJYH

Bad news. I have the NUC7CJYH and tried to boot from two USB sticks without success. Our NUCs doesn't support Legacy USB.

NUC7xJY_TechProdSpec (page 58).

And pls have a look at page 60. There you find the point 3.7.4 Power Button Menu.

1 hour ago, jkelly said:

Early on - seems to have much more low frequency energy than my Al/NUC setup.

Oh cr**p I wish I didn't read that!!    😧 😁

2 hours ago, Holzohr said:

 

Bad news. I have the NUC7CJYH and tried to boot from two USB sticks without success. Our NUCs doesn't support Legacy USB.

NUC7xJY_TechProdSpec (page 58).

 

And pls have a look at page 60. There you find the point 3.7.4 Power Button Menu.

Thanks and drat on the legacy USB support. I'll try using a pen on the power button vs finger to see if I can see a color change at 3 seconds

Can Euphony be used to make a NAA computer for a separate HQPlayer server PC (running Windows10) and connected via Ethernet ? 

10 minutes ago, motberg said:

Can Euphony be used to make a NAA computer for a separate HQPlayer server PC (running Windows10) and connected via Ethernet ? 

Yes.