Thinking of reinstalling, have a rooted droid maxx, would that make a difference in Neutron's sound/UI?
Rooting by itself won't change Neutron's sound not speaking of UI. But if thanks to being rooted you install custom ROM or custom Linux kernel with audio specific patches (like Voodoo) sound may (or may not) change. This would apply not just to Neutron but to any other player as well. Neutron's atrocious UI I'm afraid can be cured only by developers or by somebody hacking out Neutron's rendering engine and sticking it into some new UI. Rooting has nothing to do with it.