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I hate when those industry people steps out really and from facts just to maintain the faces. What would be next: they would record at +5dB digital and suggest that this type of sound cure listeners shin cancer?

Yes, Paul Stubblebine is correct, in over 16-bit mode the HDCD is not available (or necessary) but the point that Mark Donahu made was that if the 88/24 material has HDCD code then it tricks Pacific to  use “better output filters”. I did not buy this idea as the “better output filters” would be still the filters that were designed for 44kHz. There is no such a thing as “reconstruction filters” as those people like to scare people. It is just a low low-pass filer, nothing more or less, though it might be quite complex in some cases. At 88K and higher the demand to the low-pass filer filter is MUCH less and I see why we need to search for “better 44kHz output filters”. Most likely pacific has different type of filters for 1X, 2X and 4X and it’s it.  I presume that Mr. Donahu comments that “you get improved audio if your DA converter properly decodes
the HDCD (Even at 88.2 kHz /24 bit!)” were made to justify that facts the when Pacific do DD down conversion it automatically re-injects the LSB code, that any DAC would recognize as HDCD encoding.

Anyhow, the point I was making is that when Pacific runs in AD mode, you feed Digital_IN (this is the only way how I use it) and your digital has LSB code (HDCD encoded) then Pacific most likely read and LSB code without you knowing it. If you switch you meter souse from Digital_IN to Ouput then the HDCD indictor will light up blue. It is kind of confusing but if I run DD mode with proper HDCD decoding and AD with the presumed “surreptitious” HDCD decoding and hear no difference then can I assume that that my presumption about the  surreptitiousness of HDCD decoding in AD mode was accurate?

Whatever the “right” answer might be I do not feel that it is important as I see a NEED to encode 2X at HDCD as an absolutely false idea.  Pacific just does it apparently in the way how Mark Donahu used it and Mark created a “justification”, substituting the specific fault of a given processor with a fable about the benefit of HDCD encoding at 88K.

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