Thanks Cindy, so my assumption is CORRECT, having my Audio files HOSTED on my NAS in a separate room and using a good streamer/DAC to play them will yield the EXACT same results as if I had a dedicated Audio server (Innuos, etc...) in the same room - BOTH connected via the same network/ethernet cable!
From what I can gather, the dedicated music servers just make the life easier, and make it dumb proof for folks to host their files (Innuos is super easy), but for anyone with technical background like myself, I can simply put my files on my Synology Audio folder and have exact same results with data redundancy, backup, remote access and ease of use! It's currently hosting 4K videos without a problem.
I guess my next question is, WHICH streamer/DAC, under $2K, would do the job best playing files off my NAS PLUS having Tidal/Spotify Connect?