Of course A+3 is bargain priced compared to Roon/HQP which is a very expensive combo player at more than A$340 together - and that only gives you a 1yr subscription of Roon. Note again that I'm comparing these players in passthrough mode without any volume controls/upsampling/filters etc. In any case I now find A+3 to have the upper hand in SQ. Who knows, maybe restarting my Mac shook something out or cleared some cache info with how A+3 is handling data. However my current feeling is that A+3 is more transparent than Roon/HQP.
In comparison to A+3, Roon/HQP sounds a bit more upfront in perspective with a warmer/fuller but beautifully detailed sound - which perhaps benefits some material. I've done some more listening to A+3 since my comments above - and I feel that a revision of my assessment is in order. There's little doubt in my mind that A+3.01 shows improvements in clarity and transparency over the previous 2.66 version. However using Roon with HQPlayer gives me the best SQ from computer audio (so far).Ī+ still sounds better than everything else I've tried. I prefer A+ to using the built in Roon player. Yes A+ in direct mode - still using El Capitan.