All I know is back in the day when everyone used HPS it seems there was a lot of dank stinky weed and now, everything pales in comparison. Genetics have a big role to play too but even just decent weed up until the mid 2000s would still reek and have like a tinge to the nose, stink up a room when you walked in. My LED grows give me better quality than I can get in a dispensary but I still think they would be twice as good under LED.
Maybe it’s more terpenes total, but maybe HPS gives more of the dank stinky terpenes and less of the sweet, floral etc. I would like to run HPS and compare sometime.