[Dean Roddey]

If you have decent converters, they should provide you with the metering you need to know what leves are hitting them, right? I cannot imagine that a reasonably good set of converters cannot handle a -6dB peak without distortion.

And, if you have a good pre-amp, it should also provide you with input and output levels, so you know if you are pushing it too hard.

Obviously you don't need to work like in the tape days and max out the levels. But peaking in the -12 to -6dB range (with the RMS some amount below that, depending on the type of content), I just can't see how that could be a problem if you have decent equipment.

It seems that, if you need boosts of 16dB, don't you already have far worse things to worry about?

And I've always found it interesting that when it comes to this, all the arguments about gain staging seem to be thrown out the window. Why isn't it bad gain staging to bring down all of your levels quite low, and in many cases pull down faders to get the other tracks a appropriate levels to match the lowest ones, to do all the processing with reduced resolution, then push the whole thing up 3 or 4 bits worth in the end? That's exactly the same as bad gain staging, it sounds to me.

I'm just pointng that out as an observation, not trying to make any particularly argument out of it. But it seems to me that if you track in the -12dB to -6dB peak range, with around a -20 to -16'ish RMS depending on material, that you'll end up with about -9dB'ish master bus levels (peak), which should be fine, it shouldn't cause any distortion in reasonably well made equipment, and you still have plenty of room to make reasonable mastering adjustments I would think. If you need more than that, perhaps a re-mix might be in order?

Anyway, just just being argumentative for the interest of a good discussion.