the devil's section absolutely does not sound better. johnny categorically shreds him to pieces to the point that the devil himself had to acknowledge his defeat.

the only reason the devil's section sounds solid is because he has a backing band. his actual fiddle playing is drastically inferior to johnny's.

can argue he displayed pride and therefore the devil won out, but this isn't the angle charlie daniels was going for, as is reinforced by the sequel song, 'the devil comes back to georgia'.

My interpretation is that Johnny might have indulged with a bit too much Class A drugs.