Article: iOS Roon Audio Endpoint With iPeng - Almost Perfect

[Jörg Schwieder]

Thanks for this article, much appreciated.

Regarding the bit-perfect issue I can confirm what's written in the article. I was a bit surprised to hear about it because I'd been using a similar setup a lot for DoP testing recently (working on DSD playback for the next major iPeng release, hint, hint...). This also requires high sample rates with bit-perfect output but that was with LMS, something seems to be different with Roon.

The tests mentioned in the article seem to indicate it's indeed iPeng or iOS causing the bit changes, I'm investigating. Since iPeng doesn't seem to have the issue with LMS my current guess is that something is different with gain handling in Roon's Squeezebox emulation so that iPeng uses the gain mixer, I'm sure I'll find out ...

But for now ... don't expect it to be bit perfect beyond CD quality although I hope that's going to be fixed soon.

[Jörg Schwieder]

The In-App-Purchase is in "Settings->Enable Playback".
If you don't see the In-App-Purchase it usually means that either you have already purchased it before (in this case you will then fins an "Enable Playback" switch in "Settings->iPeng Settings") or you have disables In-App-Purchases in the iOS settings on your device.

[Jörg Schwieder]

1 hour ago, Dr Tone said:

 

iDevice with iPeng is the audio end point and isn't conveying them anywhere.

Unless you use Bluetooth or AirPlay.

Although at least for AirPlay there would be little point in that since you could use that just as well directly with Roon.

[Jörg Schwieder]

The music comes out of the iPhone or iPad. Speakers or headphones. Or a USB DAC connected to it.

That's the idea

And yes, you can redirect that to other devices through Bluetooth or AirPlay but most of the time that's not what you want.

[Jörg Schwieder]

14 minutes ago, austinpop said:

@The Computer Audiophile

 

I sure hope Jörg finds a fix. Is there a way for me to contact him directly with this additional finding?

 

You can just write me through the App, there's a link under "Help" and it will give me details about your setup.
I'm not 100% sure what Roon exactly sends to a non-MQA device like iPeng.
I have recently done a lot of testing on the data flow through iPeng and I really can't see where iPeng would touch any data. I'll have to talk to Roon again whether there are any player specific modifications being made or the like but unless you have somehow enabled replay gain (unlikely, I haven't seen that in my Roon testing) or the equalizer iPeng just doesn't touch the data at all. iOS might do that downstream of iPeng but that would surprise me because my DoP testing works well.

One thing, though: iPeng currently only supports up to 96kHz sample rate so if your MQA is converted to higher sample rate output this will be transcoded. And also, iPeng might insert silence before your track starts, if that affects any code detection it might also be an issue.

I'm a bit surprised about your App Store experience, it should have been the other way around, you'd have to pay for the App (iPeng 9) but the playback feature is what you can migrate from iPeng Classic for free. That said, if you purchased iPeng 9 through one of the upgrade bundles you might come off pretty cheap under certain circumstances depending on the currency your store is on, prices here can fluctuate widely due to the somewhat complicated way in which Apple calculates price changes and exchange rate changes (compared to US$).

[Jörg Schwieder]

4 hours ago, austinpop said:

 

1. Currently, only the Tidal desktop apps on Mac/Win, and Audirvana Plus 3 have licensed the MQA Core. Roon does not have an MQA core as yet.

 

2. As for the app purchase experience, yeah I can't explain it. I fired up iPeng Classic. After a bit, it gave me the option to purchase the playback feature for $4.99, which I did. Then I realized I wasn't seeing the Roon App option. At this point, I decided to "buy" iPeng 9 (for $8.99). I followed the usual path on the App Store, but looks like I was never charged.

 

1. Ah, ok, that makes sense.
It's worse, iPeng would probably need an MQA core for this to work as well.

 

2. Interesting. Could it be you purchased iPeng 9 before, too? Maybe when it was still called iPeng 7?