Well, in my case I tried it, and can’t hear a difference. What’s more, the consensus of the SF Audiophile society that I talked to was the same. No one could hear anything.
I find this astonishing. I wonder if most setups do not preserve phase accuracy? Certainly passive crossovers usually have serious phase issues.
On my setup, the difference is quite audible when doing A to B. Pick a random track and ask me if it is MQA or not and I would not be able to say. However A and B comparisons are quite easy once you know what to listen for.
The third easiest way to hear the difference is that MQA is slightly hotter or louder. The MQA apodizing filter tends to compress transients. Basically MQA is a mild form of CD loudness wars. This loudness compression trick is what gives the impression that MQA extracts more transient detail. Smoke and mirrors is what MQA is all about. If there were real benefits (rather than hand waving) then the technical details would not be so carefully hidden from public scrutiny.
Compare MQA lack of transparency to the transparency regarding SACD and the CD formats. The differenc is Sony did not need to hide technical details because SACD and CD weren’t all “smoke and mirrors”.