I have made a couple of screenshots of the way I`ve set it up, along with audio pre-encoding (original track) and eq return, post decoding.
I have routed from insert 1 (with msed in encode mode) out to the eq`s (through the soundcards software, but nothing there that could affect the sound in any way, straight blank channel), back into insert 2 (with msed in decode mode). As you can hear in the second audio file, something is awfully wrong.