Nothing beats both! I started out as a Violinist--read the music and if it's not there, don't play it. At about 17 I discovered fiddle music, and it tokk me another 25 years to even figure out what was meant by "ear"! I still cannot pick up tunes very well by ear, but I can now finally adapt the sheet music to what I hear in my head.
Reading music is not that hard, there is a lot less to learn than reading words, and we all (?) learned to do that.