I always thought Roon Remote is just like a remote control of an electric device, until today. I listened to Bach’s Goldberg Variations (H.D Kraggerrud) with Roon (Mac mini as a core) , sound was much superb than before, I thought may be today the electricity power was more clean (less interference). Then I noticed my iPad showing a Mac dock station , I realized I was using VNC to Mac instead of control my Mac Core via Roon Remote, therefore I closed the VNC and restart the Roon Remote on my iPad.
Without too long, I could hear the sound was less clarity, less airy and the separation of instruments were not as good as before, therefore I switched back to previous setting ie. via VNC and quit the Remote app, everything back to normal and much ideal than with Remote running.
In order to confirm I have done back and forth testing with and without Remote, the result was the same, sound better without Remote app.
I have no idea about the reason, is someone else has the same experience ?
Cant say I notice this with my setups but maybe the core is no having to do the extra work (and cpu noise etc) to support the VNC connection compared to the Roon client on iOS.
Do whatever sounds best to you.
You also don’t indicate what the specs are on your Roon Core Mac so maybe its running borderline performance?
I have heard someone else say this with an older iPad saying the new one made Roon sound better , but ireally can’t understand how this is possible. I would also think using VNC is more processor heavy than using a Roon remote as it’s encoding the entire desktop over the connection to render.
Makes no sense, I use phone, pc and tablet and can’t say I hear a difference. If you disconnect the iPad after start playing does the sq change? If the iPad is effecting it then this should change. I wonder if your DAC is susceptible to wireless interactions from the environment?