I operate my layouts with both the Massoth Central Station/Power Supply and the Piko Central Station (made by Massoth). I only use DCC and for the two Marklin/LGB locomotives I own, I've turned off the mfx protocols using CV50=2. The loco's Owner's Manuals do recommend turning off the protocols not used, e.g., if using mfx, turn off DCC & DC. If using DCC, turn off mfx. The point is that there can sometimes be conflicts with all three protocols being activated: mfx, dcc and dc.
For my customers' DCC sound conversions, I've primarily used Massoth XLS, Phoenix (with Massoth XL), and Soundtraxx Tsunami2. But a customer friend of mine requested I install the ESU 5 XL DCC Sound Decoders into his LGB locomotives and the sound quality is far superior than Massoth for American Steamers (Euro Steamers and American Diesels are ok). I've complained to Massoth several times about their American Steamer's "chuff" distortion but they've failed to fix it in their sound files. Ironically, I installed a Massoth XLS V. 2.5 2010 older sound decoder into a customer's LGB Mogul and the sound quality is excellent including chuff.......so I recently suggested to Massoth to bring back that older sound file for their current XLS decoders. Massoth is coming out in October with its upgraded XLSC sound decoder and hopefully there will be a significant improvement in the American Steamer sound files.
But the electronic chuff for American Steamers on the ESU 5 XL sound decoders is great and I'm now stocking these decoders for customers. If anyone would like to see and hear a demo of the ESU 5 XL with a Massoth Pulsed Smoker I installed for a customer, check the video on my Website of an LGB 21252 South Park Forney.......super sounds! And back to the Command Station question posted, another reason my customer evolved to ESU decoders and their ECOS DCC Command Station is they are Railcom capable. The ECOS system reads a loco's Railcom-capable decoder data, such as the ESU 5 XL, automatically, populates then it on your DCC controller's screen, so there's no need to manually enter the loco's address and decoder setting yourself........a nice feature if that's important to you. It's not that important to me, so I'm sticking with Massoth DCC system.