diff --git a/doc/source/whatsnew/v2.2.0.rst b/doc/source/whatsnew/v2.2.0.rst
index be5383602383e..accf076513aa1 100644
--- a/doc/source/whatsnew/v2.2.0.rst
+++ b/doc/source/whatsnew/v2.2.0.rst
@@ -309,7 +309,7 @@ Other Deprecations
 
 Performance improvements
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
-- Performance improvement in :func:`.testing.assert_frame_equal` and :func:`.testing.assert_series_equal` for objects indexed by a :class:`MultiIndex` (:issue:`55949`)
+- Performance improvement in :func:`.testing.assert_frame_equal` and :func:`.testing.assert_series_equal` (:issue:`55949`, :issue:`55971`)
 - Performance improvement in :func:`concat` with ``axis=1`` and objects with unaligned indexes (:issue:`55084`)
 - Performance improvement in :func:`merge_asof` when ``by`` is not ``None`` (:issue:`55580`, :issue:`55678`)
 - Performance improvement in :func:`read_stata` for files with many variables (:issue:`55515`)
diff --git a/pandas/_testing/asserters.py b/pandas/_testing/asserters.py
index 8e49fcfb355fa..0d8fb7bfce33a 100644
--- a/pandas/_testing/asserters.py
+++ b/pandas/_testing/asserters.py
@@ -43,7 +43,6 @@
     Series,
     TimedeltaIndex,
 )
-from pandas.core.algorithms import take_nd
 from pandas.core.arrays import (
     DatetimeArray,
     ExtensionArray,
@@ -246,13 +245,6 @@ def _check_types(left, right, obj: str = "Index") -> None:
 
         assert_attr_equal("dtype", left, right, obj=obj)
 
-    def _get_ilevel_values(index, level):
-        # accept level number only
-        unique = index.levels[level]
-        level_codes = index.codes[level]
-        filled = take_nd(unique._values, level_codes, fill_value=unique._na_value)
-        return unique._shallow_copy(filled, name=index.names[level])
-
     # instance validation
     _check_isinstance(left, right, Index)
 
@@ -299,9 +291,8 @@ def _get_ilevel_values(index, level):
                 )
                 assert_numpy_array_equal(left.codes[level], right.codes[level])
             except AssertionError:
-                # cannot use get_level_values here because it can change dtype
-                llevel = _get_ilevel_values(left, level)
-                rlevel = _get_ilevel_values(right, level)
+                llevel = left.get_level_values(level)
+                rlevel = right.get_level_values(level)
 
                 assert_index_equal(
                     llevel,
@@ -592,7 +583,7 @@ def raise_assert_detail(
 {message}"""
 
     if isinstance(index_values, Index):
-        index_values = np.array(index_values)
+        index_values = np.asarray(index_values)
 
     if isinstance(index_values, np.ndarray):
         msg += f"\n[index]: {pprint_thing(index_values)}"
diff --git a/pandas/core/dtypes/missing.py b/pandas/core/dtypes/missing.py
index 8760c8eeca454..a635ac77566e1 100644
--- a/pandas/core/dtypes/missing.py
+++ b/pandas/core/dtypes/missing.py
@@ -562,12 +562,29 @@ def _array_equivalent_datetimelike(left: np.ndarray, right: np.ndarray):
 
 
 def _array_equivalent_object(left: np.ndarray, right: np.ndarray, strict_nan: bool):
-    if not strict_nan:
-        # isna considers NaN and None to be equivalent.
-
-        return lib.array_equivalent_object(ensure_object(left), ensure_object(right))
-
-    for left_value, right_value in zip(left, right):
+    left = ensure_object(left)
+    right = ensure_object(right)
+
+    mask: npt.NDArray[np.bool_] | None = None
+    if strict_nan:
+        mask = isna(left) & isna(right)
+        if not mask.any():
+            mask = None
+
+    try:
+        if mask is None:
+            return lib.array_equivalent_object(left, right)
+        if not lib.array_equivalent_object(left[~mask], right[~mask]):
+            return False
+        left_remaining = left[mask]
+        right_remaining = right[mask]
+    except ValueError:
+        # can raise a ValueError if left and right cannot be
+        # compared (e.g. nested arrays)
+        left_remaining = left
+        right_remaining = right
+
+    for left_value, right_value in zip(left_remaining, right_remaining):
         if left_value is NaT and right_value is not NaT:
             return False
 
diff --git a/pandas/tests/dtypes/test_missing.py b/pandas/tests/dtypes/test_missing.py
index b995dc591c749..1cc1e2725b9c7 100644
--- a/pandas/tests/dtypes/test_missing.py
+++ b/pandas/tests/dtypes/test_missing.py
@@ -560,9 +560,7 @@ def test_array_equivalent_str(dtype):
     )
 
 
-@pytest.mark.parametrize(
-    "strict_nan", [pytest.param(True, marks=pytest.mark.xfail), False]
-)
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("strict_nan", [True, False])
 def test_array_equivalent_nested(strict_nan):
     # reached in groupby aggregations, make sure we use np.any when checking
     #  if the comparison is truthy
@@ -585,9 +583,7 @@ def test_array_equivalent_nested(strict_nan):
 
 
 @pytest.mark.filterwarnings("ignore:elementwise comparison failed:DeprecationWarning")
-@pytest.mark.parametrize(
-    "strict_nan", [pytest.param(True, marks=pytest.mark.xfail), False]
-)
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("strict_nan", [True, False])
 def test_array_equivalent_nested2(strict_nan):
     # more than one level of nesting
     left = np.array(
@@ -612,9 +608,7 @@ def test_array_equivalent_nested2(strict_nan):
     assert not array_equivalent(left, right, strict_nan=strict_nan)
 
 
-@pytest.mark.parametrize(
-    "strict_nan", [pytest.param(True, marks=pytest.mark.xfail), False]
-)
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("strict_nan", [True, False])
 def test_array_equivalent_nested_list(strict_nan):
     left = np.array([[50, 70, 90], [20, 30]], dtype=object)
     right = np.array([[50, 70, 90], [20, 30]], dtype=object)