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Average & Peaks gets a bit confusing. Another way of looking at this is if you used a continuous sinewave signal generator. That way peak and average are the same.
Imagine you ran such a signal - say 1kHz sinewave - through your preamp and set the output so the VU meter read 0dbVU. Being an analog device, your preamp should have a lot of headroom above this level - 0dBVU is not a maximum ceiling like 0dbFS n digital land.
Now calibrate your A/D converter so that this signal at 0dbVU peaks your Peak meter at -18dbFS. (Or whatever is the design 0dBFU target for your converter - read the manual).
Now, when recording your wildly varying real world signals - you now know that when your VU meter reads 0dBVU, the signal is in the right area. Obviously real world recording will have peaks and transients, unlike a test tone. That's why you want headroom, both in the analog gear, but also leaving headroom in your DAW.
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