Audirvana Plus vs Roon - High Sound Quality at Lower Cost?

I recently installed Audirvana on my Win 10 Pro PC (also has Roon) to test the SQ differences. Through my headphones I can clearly hear that Audirvana is superior to Roon. The difference I am hearing is more than the difference I heard when comparing Tidal to Qobuz (Qobuz sounds better; cleaner more incisive, more 'direct' sound);
Comparing Roon to Audirvana; There is more dynamic contrast with Audirvana; Roon sounds flatter and less engaging when doing back and forth using same tracks; With Aud, vocals have more "vibrancy" and focus; overall sound has more life to it; If I didn't do the back and forth I would not have believed this.  I am not really happy about this because I have pretty much gotten used to Roon and love the integration.  


My DAC is an Exogal Comet Plus; I have selected the ASIO protocol because it was the only one that was available to the XMOS USB 2.0 ST 301C driver that Exogal uses; 
Roon also uses ASIO protocol, as I can see it in the Signal Path map;


My tests involved local DSD files and streaming from 24-bit Qobuz files. I have not tested Tidal for differences yet;

On the one hand, yay for finding a sonic improvement but quite frustrating, because it seems there is no end to getting the 100% best possible sound from a PC.  Assuming both applications handle the memory to USB protocol the same, what else could cause this?

I got rid of A+ a couple of years ago for 2 main reasons:
the lack of a nice GUI 
The necessity of placing the Mac in the audio room and using usb to the dac

when I switched, Roon was superior in sq and of course the GUI. I have heard rumblings that 3.5 is a step up in sq and they have a nice GUI now. Unless A+ has the ability for me to have my Mac in another room than my audio room and allowing me to access my dac they Ethernet, A+ is a non-starter for me. Roon provides endpoints which gives you tremendous flexibility and allows you to stay away from the inferior usb connection

I also switched from A+ to Roon a couple of years ago for the same reasons.  Last year I bought the lifetime subscription to Roon, I was so convinced about its superior SQ, compared with A+.

However A+ 3.5 has changed everything on my setup.  It sounds better than Roon.  I use Roon these days mainly for its wonderful radio, connected to Tidal. And yes, the GUI is great.  But on those occasions when I really want to listen to my music, I go A+ 3.5.  For me, the difference is component level - using no filters or upsampling on either.