Is this not just a subset of the analog vs digital, vinyl vs streaming, tubes vs solid state, my $250,000 system vs your $20,000 system, and on and on. There is and always will be one thing that will sound better to one person than to 59 others. I guess for me it is at the end of the day about the music. I listen on four or five different systems and all are delivered from different sources. Do some sound 100% better than others yes they do. Do I care not really as I listen to what I can at that time and place I am at. Do I enjoy my reference system better than my Pioneer smart speaker? Hell yes, but does my smart speaker work for the situation I need it to. Hell yes!
CD v Streamed
Uncompressed CD audio will take about 10.6mb per minute to play, to stream that takes big space and dollars to stream an album, see what your streaming company’s takes mb per minute to stream, find out and post up here.
I hear CD’s are better, I get better dynamic range from CD every time it’s A/B to me, now that could be that the streaming companies are using the "later compressed re-issues" of the same albums, you can find that out here https://dr.loudness-war.info/
Or that the streaming process itself compresses the music to save "streaming size" to save big dollars even if in small amounts.
Here’s a video from the CEO of Disc Makers Pty Ltd, yes he probably also biased because he manufacturers CD’s and vinyl, and is a very bad dancer.
https://youtu.be/YHMCTUl2FQo?t=1
Cheers George