It's my understanding that the streaming master isn't always the same as the master used for the physical copy. I'm not sure how accurate this is but it is what I have been told. I have a friend that buys a lot of media, physical cd's, vinyl and also hi-res/flac files. He also streams from a couple sources and he swears there is a difference between the streaming version and his other versions of the same album in most cases. How detectable that difference is and which version will be preferred is debatable.
It is very detectable. I recently added a transport to my system (an old Linn Classik CD), purely as transport. I run the digital output through my streamer (Cambridge Audio Azur 851n), so both streams use the same DAC/amp/speaker chain. The CD-input consistently outperforms the 16/44 source material (from Qobuz in my example). Not so for remastered/hires digital source material. Your suggestion that there is difference in the streaming versus the physical master seems to make the most sense.