Sort oddity when array is initialized via Get-Content vs inline

Create data.txt via Notepad containing three lines:

ABCZ
ABC_
ABCA

Saved as ANSI.

Get-Content -Encoding Byte data.txt
65 66 67 90 13 10  65 66 67 95 13 10  65 66 67 65 13 10
$a = Get-Content data.txt
$b = @( 'ABCZ', 'ABC_', 'ABCA' )
$a[0] -eq $b[0]; $a[1] -eq $b[1]; $a[2] -eq $b[2];
True
True
True
[System.Collections.ArrayList] $al = $a
[System.Collections.ArrayList] $bl = $b
$al[0] -eq $bl[0]; $al[1] -eq $bl[1]; $al[2] -eq $bl[2];
True
True
True
$al.Sort( [System.StringComparer]::Ordinal )
$bl.Sort( [System.StringComparer]::Ordinal )
$al
ABC_
ABCA
ABCZ
$bl
ABCA
ABCZ
ABC_