Is there a difference in sound quality when streaming TIDAL Vs CD player

I am going to address the Tidal v CD issue. I play my CDs and stream TIDAL on a Cocktail Audio X35. The X35 is a "Swiss army knife" device and one wouldn’t assume that it is as high a quality device as it truly is. Since I stream Tidal and play CDs on the same device the circuitry and ESS Sabre³² Reference DAC are the same and there are no interconnects in-between to effect sound quality and timber; I would pronounce my comparison to be about as true an A-B comparison as one can achieve. The rest of my system is also high quality. The X35 is connected to my Indy Labs Aragon 8008 with Synergistic Research Resolution Reference ICs and the amp feeds a pair of Maggie 3.7i and a Definitive S4000 powered sub. My system nearly doubles the cost threshold of 10K another contributor mentioned. The bottom line is to my ears the sound of Tidal streaming HiFi v playing the same album on CD is nearly indistinguishable. Tidal streaming in MQA is IMHO also difficult to distinguish except on stellar albums.

Just a side note. Many people are unaware of the fact that TIDAL offers a discount to Active Duty and Retired Military and Veterans. Since I'm retired Navy I get my TIDAL HiFi for $11.99 a month. 

Agreed, it’s all about the DAC. When I say DAC I refer to the DAC/opamp device that takes the digital signal and convert it to a usable analog signal, not the individual chip. This device might be stand alone or imbeded in a larger piece of equipment. Having done trials on many DACs I find it is very much an individual thing. A DAC is like a musical instrument, different DACs have distinctly different sounds, so the Best DAC device is the one your ear prefers. In my case since I’m older and my HF hearing isn’t as good as it once was, I prefer a DAC that is designed with high resolution and timbre that others might find bright.

Larry
You should hear a difference between DACs in a blind test. Interconnect cables usually can make a describable difference, however, I don't think spending $5K on speaker wire will be worth it. I use $100 worth of 10 gage stranded and twisted pair by a company called KnuKoncepts (available on amazon)  on my Maggies with great success. I've compared it to cables costing 10 times as much with no apparent difference. The 10 g prevents any voltage drop from the amp to the speakers so there is no loss of power. 10g is about as big as one can have and still make a direct connection to an amp or speaker. I've seen some very high end wire by various companies that look like fire hoses, but I think that's mostly a feel good experience as the connectors become the limitation. The stranded and twisted aspect is most important. Electrons don't travel down the center of a wire, however they travel down the surface. The stranded wire increases the surface area for the electrons to travel making a stranded wire a clearer "highway" for the electrons to travel. This assures that the impedance of the wire does not vary much thru the frequency spectrum. Twisting the wire cancels noise effects caused by nearby radio frequency devices.