Fair point Mahler, but part of being a newbie is not fully knowing what one's options are. Frankly nearly all the devices I was researching were touting Tidal, so I looked into it, and realized the HIFI membership was only a tad more expensive than what I was already paying for Apple Music.
Reviewing depths of your prior posts I see you're very knowledgable, and appreciate your response.
Would I be far off thinking that perhaps the Node 2i is where I need to be looking to support, both 'casual' Apple Music streaming, Tidal HiFi/MQA streaming, playing my current music collection from disk (ALAC), as well as Apple 2 compatibility for multi-room support, which in retrospect is more clearly what I want to do.