Shootout at the Linux Corral: AudioLinux vs Euphony

jkelly · March 14, 2019

It would be great if they could put together a special purchase discount for Audiophile Style members!

tedwoods · March 14, 2019

Could one use HQPlayer embedded without having to control it through Roon, either using HQPlayer's own library management or maybe through their Stylus app?

bobfa · March 14, 2019

44 minutes ago, tedwoods said:

Could one use HQPlayer embedded without having to control it through Roon, either using HQPlayer's own library management or maybe through their Stylus app?

I cannot answer. I have no experience with hqayer.

RickyV · March 14, 2019

5 hours ago, jkelly said:

It would be great if they could put together a special purchase discount for Audiophile Style members!

Or that you need only one copy if you have a server + NAA setup.

dc-audiogeek · March 14, 2019

1 hour ago, tedwoods said:

Could one use HQPlayer embedded without having to control it through Roon, either using HQPlayer's own library management or maybe through their Stylus app?

Yes to both! 😉

dc-audiogeek · March 14, 2019

3 minutes ago, dc-audiogeek said:

Yes to both! 😉

On second thought, yes to the latter and I'm not sure to the former.

misterspense · March 14, 2019

So when does the shootout begin?

bobfa · March 14, 2019

3 minutes ago, misterspense said:

So when does the shootout begin?

About two hours ago I now have working Roon on the endpoint.

The first part part of the shootout will be end point reboot to AL/RAM the back to Euphony.

I am am working now. Bummer😾

tedwoods · March 15, 2019

18 hours ago, dc-audiogeek said:

On second thought, yes to the latter and I'm not sure to the former.

Thanks, looks very promising...

I think I'll grab a usb stick and give it a go over the weekend...

bobfa · March 15, 2019

I have started the A/B (wait) test. When I fire up AL it loads into RAM, so the startup is slow. It takes almost 2 minutes I listen and then I shut down, remove the USB stick power up to listen to Euphony. That is about a 30 second gap. Doing this blind is almost impossible.

My typical test is to pick a selection of music and listen to 30-40 seconds, then listen again and make the swap and listen a third time. This process is hampered by the swap time.

Very slow progress. BUT with a couple of swaps in Euphony is winning in presence, depth, detail, and fullness of the lower registers. There is a precision here I have not heard before out of my system.

Progress has been made.

johnli · March 19, 2019

hi bob

how's the shootout so far?

for Euphony, I'm wondering whether it can run on M2 SSD on the NUC as endpoint? (coz right now my NUC is disc-less, only with 8G ram running AL)

does having SATA on NUC as compare with AL on ram, is the prior more noisy? notably?

Many thanks

bobfa · March 19, 2019

Over the past few days I have been listening to the system and have some observations to report.

What I have been doing is swapping between Audiolinux booting to the RAM and Euphony booting from the Optane M.2 stick in the NUC endpoint The endpoint is running Roon Bridge. The Server is running Roon on Euphony. ***As of right now this is hard to do with a configuration problem in Euphony that is patched on my system and should be in the next release. (Bleeding edge)

The first track that three of us have observed a significant and immediate difference is "Fanfare for the Common Man" on the Telarc release. The first minute of the track tells us a lot. Running AL the ring of the inital Gong hits are almost recessed. They just do not sound right. Reboot into Euphony and that wonderful ring is there and the decay just lasts forever. The kettle drums are more distinctly presented. Then the single trumpet comes in and it is haunting.

Listening to Rodrigo and Gabriela play on their third album is a joy. With Eyphony the edge of the guitars is gone the low and middle registers are much more present. You can listen to the whole album and not feel drained.

Ok, we are moving off to a little different world here. Grab "The Sound of Silence" from Immortalized by Disturbed. Play that track all the way through a couple of times on Audiolinux and then listen to it on Euphony. You tell me what you hear! Note: This version is a perfect rendition for our times as was the Simon and Garfunkle original for that time! (The YouTube video is cool too.)

Joe Ford is an electronic music artist and there is quite a lot to listen in his works. On the album "Culture" the second track "Distilled" will really show you the differences in the operating systems. Euphony is amazing at playing this one back. When you are done with that track try the first track "Culture"

I have to run for now, but one last note. Listen to "Omega" from BT's "Untitled" album. The inital really deep base portion is amazing. The track is long and the second half is very detailed and quiet. Also around the 6 min mark there are a lot of differences to be heard. Stuff is just missing on Audiolinux.

Bob

PS: Sorry for your Wallet!

rickca · March 19, 2019

OK so @ArthurPower can you explain some key differences between AudioLinux and Euphony that might account for Euphony's reported superior sound quality?

dc-audiogeek · March 19, 2019

23 minutes ago, rickca said:

OK so @ArthurPower can you explain some key differences between AudioLinux and Euphony that might account for Euphony's reported superior sound quality?

So you're asking what's in the special sauce? 😉

bobfa · March 19, 2019

58 minutes ago, rickca said:

OK so@ArthurPower can you explain some key differences between AudioLinux and Euphony that might account for Euphony's reported superior sound quality?

Rick,

I would think that it would be valuable if YOU could test this on YOUR systems and validate or invalidate what I am hearing. That would "add to the shared knowledge" in a positive way.

In addition, there are many OS variants that are used in audio systems that could be compared. I think that while it might be interesting to develop that list and learn from it, we might not have time to sit down and listen for fun!

I started this thread to encourage others to try what I am finding. I really want others to just boot-up Euphony and see if it works for them.

rickca · March 19, 2019

19 minutes ago, bobfa said:

I really want others to just boot-up Euphony and see if it works for them.

I get it, but I still think it's perfectly legit to ask the developer for some technical insight. If you want me to start a different thread to solicit this input, let me know. I didn't mean to mess up your topic.

jean-michel6 · March 20, 2019

7 hours ago, bobfa said:

Rick,

I would think that it would be valuable if YOU could test this on YOUR systems and validate or invalidate what I am hearing. That would "add to the shared knowledge" in a positive way.

In addition, there are many OS variants that are used in audio systems that could be compared. I think that while it might be interesting to develop that list and learn from it, we might not have time to sit down and listen for fun!

I started this thread to encourage others to try what I am finding. I really want others to just boot-up Euphony and see if it works for them.

Hi ,

Does the Euphony OS allow dual pc set up ?

If yes can you run both server and player pc from just USB key ?

What is the minimum ram requirement for server and player side ?

Can you run roocore and roonbridge config ?

Many questions , thank for your help.

Bricki · March 20, 2019

8 hours ago, bobfa said:

I really want others to just boot-up Euphony and see if it works for them.

Is it possible to simply download the trial, boot off a USB stick and then run roon bridge? Or is roon bridge the part that I need the patch for?

I am keen to do this and compare directly with Audiolinux on my NUC7CJYH running roon bridge

bobfa · March 20, 2019

6 hours ago, Bricki said:

Is it possible to simply download the trial, boot off a USB stick and then run roon bridge? Or is roon bridge the part that I need the patch for?

I am keen to do this and compare directly with Audiolinux on my NUC7CJYH running roon bridge

The current bug is that it does not run roon bridge properly. You can run Squeezelite and that will work.

The problem you have is that the unlicensed version will not boot on that NUC

bobfa · March 20, 2019

8 hours ago, jean-michel6 said:

Hi ,

Does the Euphony OS allow dual pc set up ?

If yes can you run both server and player pc from just USB key ?

What is the minimum ram requirement for server and player side ?

Can you run roocore and roonbridge config ?

Many questions , thank for your help.

Jean Michel

I have a whole thread dedicated to setup. Short answer is you can boot from USB but I would not do that with sever.. There is a problem with Roon Bridge setup. I do not know the minimum ram.

Madra · March 20, 2019

@bobfa, if I understand correctly, one cannot boot from a USB thumb drive and try/install Euphony on a USB thumb drive. Is that correct?

I want to try Euphony on a mac mini with Squeezelite (currently running Daphile on the mac mini from a thumb drive in squeezelite mode with LMS running on a Synology NAS).

I want to avoid reformatting/ erasing the mac mini hard disk. Is this possible?

Apologies for this basic query.

austinpop · March 20, 2019

21 hours ago, bobfa said:

Over the past few days I have been listening to the system and have some observations to report.

What I have been doing is swapping between Audiolinux booting to the RAM and Euphony booting from the Optane M.2 stick in the NUC endpoint The endpoint is running Roon Bridge. The Server is running Roon on Euphony. ***As of right now this is hard to do with a configuration problem in Euphony that is patched on my system and should be in the next release. (Bleeding edge)

The first track that three of us have observed a significant and immediate difference is "Fanfare for the Common Man" on the Telarc release. The first minute of the track tells us a lot. Running AL the ring of the inital Gong hits are almost recessed. They just do not sound right. Reboot into Euphony and that wonderful ring is there and the decay just lasts forever. The kettle drums are more distinctly presented. Then the single trumpet comes in and it is haunting.

Listening to Rodrigo and Gabriela play on their third album is a joy. With Eyphony the edge of the guitars is gone the low and middle registers are much more present. You can listen to the whole album and not feel drained.

Ok, we are moving off to a little different world here. Grab "The Sound of Silence" from Immortalized by Disturbed. Play that track all the way through a couple of times on Audiolinux and then listen to it on Euphony. You tell me what you hear! Note: This version is a perfect rendition for our times as was the Simon and Garfunkle original for that time! (The YouTube video is cool too.)

Joe Ford is an electronic music artist and there is quite a lot to listen in his works. On the album "Culture" the second track "Distilled" will really show you the differences in the operating systems. Euphony is amazing at playing this one back. When you are done with that track try the first track "Culture"

I have to run for now, but one last note. Listen to "Omega" from BT's "Untitled" album. The inital really deep base portion is amazing. The track is long and the second half is very detailed and quiet. Also around the 6 min mark there are a lot of differences to be heard. Stuff is just missing on Audiolinux.

Bob

PS: Sorry for your Wallet!

I have some changes coming in my server HW, so I am going to defer any toe-dipping in the Euphony world for a while.

I do feel uncomfortable about the pricing, when you add up 2 licenses for Roon Core and Endpoint. Not because I have an issue with the developer charging for software, but it really feels like there's an impedance mismatch with Roon users. Clearly Stylus is a full-featured player, and should be sold at a fair price, but right now, Euphony is sold as a monolithic bundle.

I'd like to see them construct a Roon distributed bundle (without Stylus) that is priced more attractively.

auricgoldfinger · March 20, 2019

6 minutes ago, austinpop said:

I'd like to see them construct a Roon distributed bundle (without Stylus) that is priced more attractively.

A very sensible suggestion!

sig8 · March 20, 2019

2 hours ago, austinpop said:

I'd like to see them construct a Roon distributed bundle (without Stylus) that is priced more attractively.

And on the same lines......... I think it comes bundled with HQPlayer embedded, which is about $247 ; I already have that, so I should be able to get one without it for less.

mriguy · March 20, 2019

Well done! You guys have really captured my interest in Euphony! Right now, I'm just using a Raspberry Pi with an Allo Digi-One into a Chord Hugo 2. A couple quick questions for your collective minds here...

Is bobfa testing/experiments going back and forth between AL and Euphony on his Roon endpoint or on his Roon core server?

What would be the best NUC to use for creating a Roon Endpoint, that will NOT be doing any oversampling? In this use scenario, is there a SQ difference between an i3 or an i5 or an i7 based NUC? Is there a SQ difference between NUC6, NUC7 or NUC8s? Is there a SQ difference between M.2 versus SSD based NUCs? Thanks very much for any thoughts and guidance you might have.

Right now, my Roon Core is running on a Mac Mini. The suggested idea of special version of Euphony for Roon users only (without Stylus), but with an adjusted price would be fantastic.

I can't wait to give all of this a try. Keep up the great conversation! I'm hanging on every word!

Shootout at the Linux Corral: AudioLinux vs Euphony

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