Here is my take: If you like more modern music selections, Tidal will be great and there is no reason to prevent you from having a audiophile quality experience, assuming your system is up to snuff. Most modern recordings in PCM use the full dynamic range of the CD format and have great frequency extension.
On the other hand, if you grew up in the 70's, most of the music you love may be from that era. I did. In this case, I have found that hi-res versions of these tracks that are remastered make all the difference. I usually download them from HDTracks. Joni Mitchell is a prime example of music that deserves to be hi-res. Most of it is available 24/192.
I use my network DAC, the Overdrive SX, with Jriver to play all resolutions of PCM files over the network. I can use any computer with Jriver on it, Mac or PC. I can do this using wired Ethernet or WIFI with identical quality. I have made comparisons to my best XMOS USB interface and the network interface yields much better SQ, even though they both use identical circuitry for clocking.
I have made comparisons to DSD and find that my PCM files are just as good, and with classical music, usually better. There are not enough tracks I like available in DSD anyway. I also leave everything in .wav format because I have found that AIFF, ALAC, FLAC and other formats compromise the SQ.
Steve N.
Empirical Auido
