Buy one track from a good hi res source or even a 16/44 that you know the distortion well on tidal. Rule out the actual recording. Or rule it as the cause definitely
Right I took your advice and purchased a 24bit/88khz download (Sam Smith - The Thrill of it All) from HDTraracks.com as a FLAC. Played with potplayer +LAV codec
TIDAL MQA stream has better dynamics + distortion on some parts of some tracks.
The 24bit/88khz download - distortion still there .
I have also played numerous Classical Tidal streams today and they were distortion free
So conclusion is TIDAL is not introducing distortion -It already exists in the original recording.
The TIDAL MQA is the preferred version.