I completely agree with this assessment. I've been trying to detect a difference in MQA for years, and I still fail to see the improvement even with a nice DAC. To me, Qobuz always sounded better. I thought I was missing something.
Why does MQA not sound good in my system? Confused
When I got my MQA enabled DAC, I jumped on masters on tidal. Then I started comparing them to non-masters and not one Master sounds better than regular files. In fact, quite the opposite. My Brinkmann DAC is known for doing MQA well. I have a highly resolving system. I use a linear power supply for the modem, have the fiber and Ethergen setup. Sounds fabulous ... unless it is MQA. The MQA letters show up on the DAC display so it is being recognized. When I used Roon, MQA did not sound great but when I moved to mcontrol the SQ got significantly better than Roon and the difference was amplified.