Apple Lossless? Do I need Tidal now. Is it better with my Node 2i?

I've come fall away from most of my Apple love of the past three decades.

That said, the interface is amazingly intuitive to use and very clever. (E.g. one can easily drill back to the whole album while listening to a cut, the lyrics are great to see in real time, etc.)

Great. But I guess I really seek subjective views of the sound quality between the two.
Thanks.

No one can tell you what you should subjectively prefer, but the facts are these:

1) AirPlay and Apple TV OS are limited to 24bit/48kHz. There is one way to tap Apple Music’s ‘hi-res lossless’ content: an iPad or iPhone, connected to a USB DAC with Apple’s Lightning-to-USB adapter.

The details are in this article. (click the link)

2) If you subscribe to Tidal Master Quality, then Master Quality can stream up to 24Bit/192kHz (typically 24Bit/96kHz).

So, Tidal offers higher resolution than Apple AirPlay in most set-ups, which may or may not sound better.

Some of the world’s best sounding DACs play only 16Bit/44Khz content.

It’s up to you to decide which music service sounds better in your system with your equipment, and which service offers features you prefer.

@tvad Ok, you’ve sent me off on a search. Can you tell me if I understand this?

Some facts: I use an iPhone or iPad to use the Apple Music App to control my Bluesound Node streamer, outputting to an MHDT DAC.

So...have I been listening to 256 AAC resolution the whole time?

If I wanted to get higher resolution, would I need to tether my device to the BlueSound node with the lightening to usb cord?

I’m not a nut for 24 bit but I’d like at least the CD quality lossless.

Any clues appreciated. I can re-read the Darko, but I’m just checking that it’s pertinent.

There's also this article, which seems to show that a cord is *not* necessary, but a laptop is... https://support.bluos.net/hc/en-us/articles/4403218953495-Does-BluOS-Support-Apple-Music-Lossless-st...

Oy.