I do have the Naim app on all my devices, although rarely used. The triangle warning is that one of my Roon Core backups has not functioned within the specified time period. Must look into that…
I bought a Samsung Tab A 10.1" for a controller. Thank you everyone for your responses.
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Does it support OpenGL 3
My 6 in version Tab A doesn’t and won’t run Roon
Back to the OP question… IMO the best controller is the one that let’s me take advantage of all that Roon has to offer. Controlling via my iPhone is my least favorite but still works fine for getting the music playing. But using my 12.9" iPad (or my Win laptop) are ideal because they both let me navigate around within Roon, read artist and album descriptions, link thru credits and easily read PDFs. From that standpoint, bigger is better as long as it’s comfortable to use while listening to the music.
But if by best you mean best bang-for-the-buck, particularly if looking for a dedicated controller, look at the larger android tablets or perhaps the Fire HD tablet.
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My phone runs 8.0 and it works fine. The tablet has andoid pi (ver. 9). Could find nothing about opengl.
Works on our Tab A 8" 2019 version.
I have a surface pro 3, Fire, ipad and an Samsung S20 android phone.
The ipad app seems to be the best, it is quick to respond and more reliable. I’m not an Apple fan.
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The inexpensive Kindle Fire ($50-$75) works great. Much easier to use than darn phone app. About as easy as desktop computer, but without the slow boot-up time and without the windows hassle.
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I prefer iOS devices, as they allow you to connect a USB DAC via OTG and stream all formats incl DSD up to DSD256 (haven’t tried DSD512) natively.
Android devices can only stream DSD via USB using UAPP. Roon remote on Android does not do DSD to USB.
Okay. Simple test. Start an album using your iPad Air and quit the Roon app on the iPad Air. Does the sound quality get better, get worse, or stay the same once you kill the app on the iPad Air? Do the same with iPad 12.9". Does the sound quality get better, get worse, or stay the same once you kill the app on the iPad 12.9"?
A better methodology would be to have someone else in control of the iPads, preferably in another room altogether) and switching at random, otherwise confirmation bias my creep in
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Roon uses mono-project.com which is a Microsoft .net cleanroom implementation. This allows Roon Controller to function on any platform supporting Mono. As noted, Mono is display agnostic doing responsive layout but not supporting display gestures.
Which platform is best? The most stable one that you can afford. The one that best fits in your home software environment.
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I’ve installed and use both my Android phone app and the iPad app and both work really well with my Roon Nucleus Plus server. I prefer the iPad app, having a larger screen, but both work really well.
As I said…simple. And it is a start…
The S177 is designed to be worn on the wrist and can be synced with any supercar’s keyless entry system allowing royalty, rappers and footballers to unlock and start their cars without touching a key.
I can see that on some 7 ‘footballers’, but cant we do away with the key and just go with gestures. 
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Too many folks are piling on against the notion that the sound quality may change due to different remote devices. The idea presented is that the remote isn’t in the signal path, so it has no effect.
While it is true that remotes aren’t in the signal path, they are in fact the only devices that can change the sound quality! One cannot control the DSP settings and volume setting and zone leveling settings and device settings and probably other settings in any other way but using a remote, and these settings all impact the sound.
Why is that relevant to this discussion?
Well, these settings seem to be kept on the server and are independent of the remote being used unless the remote, on user action, explicitly changes them. But some of them seem to be linked to the user profile, and the user profile is somehow linked to the login or owner of the remote device.
remote device -> user profile -> playback & other settings -> sound quality
In other words, if you’re connected to the server as profile X when using your iPad remote, but profile Y when using a laptop, and there are differences in the two profiles’ settings that affect the sound, then you will get different sound simply by changing the remote device.
It is possible that there aren’t any settings stored in user profiles that affect sound quality. This is an open question for me. I have seen differences over the years when using my wife’s iPhone (which activates one profile) versus my other remotes, which all seem to use profile “Eric”, but I haven’t paid enough attention to nail this down.
Worse, there is no definitive, in-depth documentation on this feature – what profiles contain and how they interact with the system – partly because roon changes so often and the documentation is often old. For example, this page, last edited in 2016, sent me down a rat-hole looking for DSD modulator settings: https://kb.roonlabs.com/DSD_to_PCM_Settings.
So I will always be open to reports that sound quality differs between remotes because, unknown to the user, the remotes interact with the server using different profiles that can change the sound quality if the profiles have different settings.
Thanks,
- Eric
Not true. When the volume is less than max, the DSP is reducing the volume, yet it is not shown in the signal path. See my “feature request” at Issue ez-06: Always show DSP volume in the “signal path” if not set to full volume.
Oh, good point. I guess that is dependent on the Audio Device “Volume Control” setting. Device or Fixed would not trigger the DSP volume but DSP Volume will. I don’t use DSP volume anywhere so didn’t realize this last setting didn’t trigger a change in Signal path.
With the Naim, DSP volume should not be used. I believe Roon natively supports device volume on that device (or set fixed if connected to a pre).
I think the assumption everyone made, rightly or wrongly, was the OP was using the same profile. Obviously, it he is using a different profile with different DSP choices, the sound could or would be different.
Yes, that’s why it is often better to have an open mind and to be “less certain and more curious” about other people’s perspectives. It helps everyone get along and grow together…something this world needs more of!
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