Well, I had my 2nd outing with the Church Preamp, with much better results. This was Jethro Tull, 6th row center. Not as heavy as Rush, but a few songs rocked pretty hard, and I don't have any of the distortion I had with Rush.
This time out I had the iRiver gain at 10 (vs. 20), and adjusted the levels via the Church preamp (I had to crank it close to all the way up). I used the Safety AGC, but set it at a lower time threshold. By the end of the show it had bumped the level down to 9.5.
Looking back , I think that I actually may *not* have had the Safety AGC on at Rush. I haven't messed with the iRiver since then, and when I turned it on I saw that the AGC was off. Also, the sample I posted was after doing some minor editing in Audacity, and I wonder if saving the file could have possibly somehow removed the tell-tale signs of clipping.
ANYWAY,