Decades ago, I was treated to an ABX test in my brother's recording studio. I easily recognized and preferred a 24/192 master he played versus the 16/44.1 down-mix. I honestly don't know whether there was something wrong with the down-mix, but qualitatively it did feel like it was "muffled" and coming from speakers, while the master really felt like live performance. He was surprised that I could tell them apart.

I also spent a lot of time ripping my old CDs to FLAC and trying different MP3 and AAC encoder settings to get playback that felt transparent enough to me. I could never tolerate Sirius/XM radio streaming due to the horrid compression I heard with every futile attempt. I still seem to have more sensitive hearing than most people around me, but in my 50s I know it isn't what it once was.

I never had huge budgets, but did strive for hi-fi in my limited ways. I used things like toslink and HDMI to send raw PCM data from Linux to my Yamaha A/V receiver's DACs + amplifier to drive somewhat nice Polk tower speakers. But then COVID-19 happened, and this stuff was packed up to move house.

Nowadays, music playback is streaming with mundane "subwoofer + satellite" PC speakers or MP3 playback with a mini-SD card permanently parked in my car's infotainment system.