You are welcomed. I’m happy to share my experience, and I’m also happy to learn from others’ experience.
I have all the players that you have + HQPlayer and Colibri.
After the trial period of AS, I’ll give a new try to Amarra Luxe. This is also a very good sounding player. It has an analog like sound, and it supports Qobuz and Tidal. But when I tried it, about a year and a half ago, it was too buggy.
The settings in Neutron are complex, but with its huge fonts and ugly icons, you can see at least what you are doing, which is not always the case with the user unfriendly small fonts of AS.
It’s very easy to use and has a good remote.
For people who do not stream and don’t need multi-room, Brio is a good alternative to Roon at zero cost.
Hi, i own Audirvana 3.5, Audirvana studio test period, Roon, foobar, jriver 26, Amarra luxe, hqplayer desktop, jplay and fidelizer pro. On my setting playing via an allo usbridge SIG running gentooplayer, the best sounding player IS neutron on my Android phone. Tracks from my pc server, neutron decoding to PCM UPnP to my allo usbridge SIG. This is the best way for sound quality on my audio system. Better than the others… Even using UPnP to my allo usbridge SIG with Audirvana or jriver or RAAT for Roon. And the difference IS clearly audible with headphones or on my triangle speakers.
With my iPhone also, Neutron sounds great. I did not take the time to compare the iPhone version to the PC version of Neutron and to my other desktop players, but I won’t be surprised if it sounds better than them, as unlike the computer, the iPhone is a completely silent device
The Russians who made Neutron are poor UI designers, but they have a better sound rendering technology than the Americans, the French or the Japanese.
Well for the 8 euro’s required decided to give Neutron a shot and bought it. It sounds really good… But the interface is, as you said it, horrible…
After a day or two, you’ll get used to it, and then you’ll navigate with ease in this Russian labyrinth.
BTW, Neutron has an online manual that I forgot to mention.
Unfortunately, I discovered its existence a bit late, after I studied the app by myself.
https://neutroncode.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6137&sid=7bef58ce5ea19bed488ff0be0217f704
There’s also a forum in English.
Thank you !
I didn’t see this manual before.
I had to fight this Neutron settings also on my own.
I’ll have a look there. So far I have found out several things the hard way. Also that I had to restart the app several times to get changes to work in it.
Currently playing one of my favourite musicians 
Air from France
Don’t go for Amarra. It crashed here all the time. Didn’t want to play. Not worth the time and money. Judging the app and their website, it seems they are stuck in the 90’s.
Excellent choice, I listen to a lot of AIR as well.
Did you try it on a Mac or on a PC (Windows)?
Windows, didn’t try Mac. But never seen such a bad piece of software.
Yeah, it’s really buggy on Windows. Some folks using it on a Mac seem to like it.
That’s the case of my neighbor on Mac. He loves Amarra. I tried it on Mac a year and a half agon and it was too buggy for me.
I didn’t know Air, and I did not know that it’s a French group. I’m listening to it now on last.fm to find out what music they are doing.
I see some discussion on HQPlayer here, so I am going to throw in my 2 cents.
I have already posted some comments on why I bought HQPlayer in the forums, so I will not rehash old thoughts. However, I want to share my recent discovery that some of you may want to try (or not). One of the things I heard about HQPlayer is that the player is optimized for the Ubuntu Linux OS.
When someone used the word “optimize” in connection with music listening, I paid attention. I first installed Ubuntu OS in a separate SSD drive using F12 in my computer during boot time to select OS to boot. I did not install Ubuntu with my Windows drive plugged in because I did not want the Ubuntu boot manager to overwrite my Windows boot manager.
Anyway, after installing the HQPlayer Desktop 4 in my Ubuntu OS system, I found the sound utterly encapturing. The sound quality is there, but more importantly, the music brought a sense of immersion to it. I also tried to eliminate any placebo effect by going back and forth between the Windows version of HQPlayer and the Ubuntu HQPlayer. I am utterly convinced that the “breakthrough” sound experience is better than any players I have listened to so far under the Windows-based system.
The music is engaging and pulls me away from whatever I am doing at the moment (like reading a book, etc.). Essentially, when I listen to Ubuntu’s HQPlayer, I cannot focus on anything else except the music. I am talking about a music experience that has gone beyond simple sound quality.
But don’t believe me. It would help if you tried it yourself. Make it a fun project, if you may. Ubuntu OS is free and super-easy to install. And HQPlayer can be downloaded for a free trial if you don’t own it. And if you own it, you owe yourself to give it a try to listen to the player under the Ubuntu OS system. If you paid for HQPlayer, you paid for the multiple platforms use as long as you are only using it on one PC at a time.
Disclaimer: the sound experience I achieved is based on my PC and audio-hardware equipment, and of course, my ear. If you are interested in trying new stuff, I believe you may be surprised if you pursue the Ubuntu HQPlayer project.
I had Audirvana for 3 years and moved over to roon following AS subscription model. To me there is no difference in sound quality and I haven’t seen any evidence to prove the contrary. Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence🚀