@Bencherished, I tried moving Poweramp into system app and nearly bricked my device while reverting the app into the normal user app After hours of sweaty palm, finally recovered without any data loss. (issue reported)
btw, while running Poweramp as system or system-priv app, I didn't notice ANY sound quality improvements. And the original issue reported in this thread was still there.
@maxmp since the audio could be auto-resumed by just toggling the Audio Output settings like no-DVC (still keeping on AAudio output), and the issue happens in different firmware and Android version, I think it can be fixed within the app code itself.
I kindly request you to try recreating the issue yourself so you may find the actual underlying problem.