iPeng Signal Path

Hi Everyone,

When I connect to my Roon core using iPeng on my iPhone, I get a lossless signal path when playing audio from my iPhone (endpoint) to Bluetooth earbuds. If I don’t use iPeng, connect to the iPhone as an endpoint directly through Roon and play the same file using the same set up, I get a green high quality on the output path since it’s using Blutooth. Is this the expected behavior? What exactly is happening with iPeng that causes this to show as the better method of playing to Bluetooth earbuds?

I don’t think that when using iPeng the signal path is lossless. In any case bluetooth uses compression. It’s just that when you use iPeng, Roon is unaware what happens after it has sent the signal to iPeng. Roon delivers the signal to iPeng losslessly and that what it’s indicating. When not using iPeng, Roon is aware of using bluetooth and there switches on the green light. In both cases the actual sound quality is the same.

1 Like

Hmm, I think signal path to the player is lossless in both cases. The green dot turns up because Roon is informed by the player that the last step is Bluetooth in one case and in the iPeng case, not.

EDIT: @DeLub two ways of saying the same :slightly_smiling_face:

I figured as much, @DeLub and @ogs - just wanted some confirmation. Thanks!

I’m not familiar with iPeng. What is the purpose of it versus just using Roon? Thanks.

I only use it when I’m not on my wifi network at home. Outside my home Roon doesn’t work unfortunately. The, rather complicated, workaround is to use a VPN to connect to my home network, enable squeezebox streaming on my Roon core, start iPeng (a squeezebox client), and then I can use Roon on my phone to play the music to iPeng (pfff… :slight_smile: ). I’m still hoping Roon will lift the restriction that the endpoints need to be on the same network. Then I won’t have a need for iPeng anymore.

(see also VPN: step-by-step)

1 Like

Does iPeng serve any purpose if you are not trying to use Roon remotely?

No, I don’t see any added value over a Roon endpoint.

1 Like