One of the top deluxe versions of Cyberlink PowerDVD previous to 9 would play DVD-Audio, but I forget the exact version. I now have the top deluxe version of 11 and have not noticed if it will play DVD-Audio, which is now little used for new releases. I have an Oppo disc player that will play Blu-ray video and audio from files, discs, or iso files and you can connect this player to an external HD via usb so you do not even need a computer - you connect to a HD TV. The Oppo also will play DVD audio and SACD discs and HD files. Several years ago some DVD players in the moderate price range would play both DVD-audio and SACD. Pioneer may have made such a player, and you might be able to find a used one on some auction sites such as eBay.
I only record audio as Blu-ray audio now. There is a not-too-expensive pay progran that records in dvd-audio, and it has now been upgraded to record in Blu-ray audio, which is all I use. I store the Blu-ray audio on internal or external HD discs as iso files, because this is cheaper than recording directly to Blu-ray discs. In case I want a disc, that is easy to burn from the iso file. Also the recent top deluxe versions of PowerDVD will play the iso files on the computer or a Blu-ray audio disc. There are a very few commercial Blu-ray audio releases. However the huge memory of a Blu-ray disc is perfect for large collections of music. Also you can record 5.1 surround at say 96 KHz, 24-bits as uncompressed LPCM for all channels, including surround channels, which is not possible with DVD-audio. Legal downloads for much music are now for sale from a few sources, and these range up to 192 Khz and 24-bits, some are surround. Also they are not crippled by copy protection management such as are many of the mp3 legal downloads. For older recordings, they have gone back to the original tapes to produce these releases and make deluxe versions of older music on CD and SACD (still in fairly wide use outside of the US). However these downloads are not cheap.
It is possible that if you have an older PowerDVD that is a standard version and there also was a deluxe version of it that would play DVD-audio, you would get a message to upgrade if you try to play a DVD-audio disc. Since the older versions are no longer available, the message might send you to an update site for a newer version of PowerDVD that does not support DVD-audio.
