I recorded a loud show last week and had distortion. The setup was CA14 Cards>CA9200>R05 (line in). Batteries were fresh and the level on the R05 was about 35 peaking about -12dB. I'm pretty sure I overloaded the 9200. I'm learning this pre still, so the mic input has a variable pot and the output has stepped gain. Being mostly a studio engineer, I'm used to mic preamps being the other way around with stepped inputs and a pot to trim the output going to the next device in the signal chain.
So my question is, should I run the input pot more conservatively and use the stepped output gain to reach desired levels on the R05? I think I had the input pot at maybe half, possibly more (it was dark) and the output at +10 on the CA9200.