By "hi res," do you mean above 16/44.1, or do you mean non-compressed, i.e. better than mp3?
If the former, how do you explain those differences when the additional dynamic range is not utilized, and the additional information is above the threshold of hearing in frequency? Also no, most commercial DACs struggle to reach 16 bits, and the vast majority of amplifiers struggle to reach 14 bits. How is 24 bit or 32 bit an advantage in the real world? In files above 44.1 or 48, any legitimate sound is ultrasonic to humans or, as shown in spectral analysis by Amir and other researchers, just useless noise. Why should we care about it?
If the latter, you make a good point for music that extends below 40Hz. Or contains a lot of stereo information, depending upon the bitrate used during encoding.
But, for a large majority of music, I cannot hear a difference between lossless and well-encoded lossy, such as VBR0 mp3.