@ghdprentice said... "All the sound quality stuff happens after being caught and translated into analog."
Yes, this! What the OP was illustrating by his description of the infrastructure used to support some of the popular streaming platforms is, we're all drinking from essentially the same well. We're all pretty much getting the same one's and zeros.
Whether that is "good or bad" I'll leave to the reader. What that does however is level the playing field when it comes to streaming. How we each individually handle this homogenious supply of media is what ultimately differentiates what we hear.
Barring obvious impediments like a noisy switch in the chain or other such physical issues, the stream will be exactly the same. Where it begins to differ is in how each consumer, us, handles it. Be it hard wiring directly from a cable modem or using wifi or perhaps fiber, the changes start there. Now add in the infinite combinations of streamers, DACs, preamps, amps, integrateds, speakers, heaphones, room treatments and dare I say it, cables, and we get what we get.
This is analogous to playing two identical LPs on two different turntables with different cartriges... Think about it.
To me the beauty of this avocation of ours is we can each tailor the sound until we get what we find most satisfying according to our tastes and budget. And there are limitless, space and budget constraints aside, possibilities to try.
And again, as always, I say...
Happy listening.