My first foray into specialist file renderers (after Foobar) several years ago was with JPLAY.  At that time it was very tweaky and had a lousy method to play music unless you incorporated Jriver.  Jriver then prevented JPLAY working with it.  Some people then allied the tough to use Bughead with JPLAY.  I used Bughead on its own and at some point before I also used MQN as well as some Linux players too.  Over the last couple of years I've been using Volumio on the Allo USBridge and Pi with good digital cards (DigiOne currently).

OK, so what's happened now?  I received some emails from the JPLAY guys.   The latest version of JPLAY (still only for Windows) is called JPLAY FEMTO, it can be controlled from Android or iOS.  I'm using BubbleUPnP on Android, this gives me a good interface to my library with album art.  JPLAY FEMTO supports files playback, Tidal and Qobuz, radio stations but NOT Spotify.  The software is available at jplay.eu/ for download of a 3 week fully functional trial.

I must admit that I didn't really want to return to where I started but it seemed the install of JPLAY FEMTO would be pretty simple.  It was, it took about 10 mins, it's running on my fanless media server.  There are of course some tweaks to improve the sound (DAC Link being the key one I've found so far). 

So what did I find?  Two things struck me; the sound was simply "more refined" when I made a direct comparison with Volumio.  The big win however is soundstaging, it's significantly improved.  The area between the speakers is much better controlled with instrument placement being superb.  I've found with digital that getting soundstage to rival my analogue setup had been a long journey but the Pi and USBridge just about got there (with suitable power supplies).  JPLAY FEMTO exceeds what my relatively high end record deck can do...

If you have a suitable Windows machine I suggest you give the free trial of JPLAY FEMTO a go.  You might be surprised.  I was!