Im trying to get a feel for the difference in the wifi perfomance of these 3 devices.

I understand that the strength of the Audience is using 2 in Mesh mode, but how about it by itself vs the other 2?

Also I see the new Hap ac3 has external antennas but the specs show that the Hap ac2 has a higher transmit power. How does that make any sense?

EDIT: Ok, I think ive got it. The ac3 has higher gain antennas so to keep the EIRP within regulations, the ac3 has to reduce its transmit power. So since the transmit power is capped, the real difference would be that the uplink direction (device to AP) would have a higher gain to hear the device and should be able to produce a better overall wifi experience?

If thats true, then I guess the real question goes back to the Audience. How does the wifi perfomance compare in standalone mode to the other 2?

that's really interesting question.

i only have hap ac and its wifi range is, i think, lower than an archer's C7. which is somehow "looked down to" by mt community.

The rumour goes that antennae of hAP ac3 are only uglier versions of those of hAP ac2 ... that performance is similar.

Audience is a completely different beast on 5GHz though. It has two 5GHz radis, one is dual-stream and one is true quad-stream (MIMO 4x4). They can be used at the same time as they are blocked to use only non-overlapping parts of 5GHz band. Mind that both radios can be used either for normal AP or for mesh, mesh functionality is pure software and can be configured at will (even on 2.4GHz radio).

MT is working on updated Wifi5 software for their WIFI devices, with a small caveat it wont be available for most of the existing products save the hapac3 for one.
So if its future proofing, the choice is clear. Not familiar with mesh products. It would be interesting for someone to chime in that has used Audience, Orbi etc..... to compare differnt mesh products.

AC3 looks to be Wave2 compatible with ros7, instead of AC2...
https://help.mikrotik.com/docs/display/ROS/WifiWave2

yes, i noticed that...
however, i must say i'm not so in love with mt anymore. while they're working on a fancy wave 2 tech, which will bring some joy to newer products, ubqt, tp-link and others have their gen.6 wifi devices on the shelves. also, everything is so bloody difficult to achieve with mt. it's like operating an old russian tank....