I don't know if this answers any of your concerns. I've owned a BDP-pi since Jan 2018. My ripped music collection is mostly classical music. I've also bought a lot of downloads, mostly from Presto Classical UK. There are 56,000+ files ("songs" in pop/rock parlance) and cover art JPEGs. These files are on a Western Digital Passport hard-disk drive. I have no complaints about the speed of loading these files. Complete symphonies & operas -- they load within a second, essentially instantly. I also use QOBUZ. Files load quickly. I know nothing about TIDAL. I did have a problem a couple of years ago with Manic Moose (the software application), but that turned out to be due to a faulty microSD card. Chris was able to contact my BDP-pi through the internet to diagnose the problem. My only complaint about that episode is that I had to buy my own replacement microSD card. Bryston was either unwilling or unable to provide a replacement, which I thought they might be willing to do under the BDP-pi's warranty. This was near the beginning of the pandemic chaos. Sound quality is essentially perfect in my opinion. I've never needed or wanted to play DSD files, which the BDP-pi can't play.