yeah, Dave, I never get that over message when I know I'm clipping. Usually try to run mine at around -6db. Gives me a little room to avoid clipping when it gets really loud.
ugh...at -6db you're losing *half* your resolution
You're only losing 1 bit of resolution, leaving 15 bits. You can still approach 90 dB S/N with that.
1 Bit == 32768 possible values...still think it's insignificant?
At 24 bits, 1 bit is 8,388,608 possible values. It's still a 6 dB degradation on the maximum possible S/N.
Mathematically, losing one bit of resolution is losing half of your possible values, no matter how many bits you start out with. The question is can you tell the difference between 15 and 16 bits of resolution? Most people can't. On the other hand, when you set the gain too high and you need 17 bits rather than 16, you can EASILY hear that. Setting the gain 6 dB low to avoid clipping in my opinion is a very reasonable tradeoff to make. When I do that, I give up 6 dB of S/N that I can't easily hear in order to avoid clipping that I definitely CAN hear.