Just to echo the sentiments of a few others, I try to run my levels as hot as possible during the initial recording. If by chance my levels aren't quite loud enough, I'll do a slight volume increase, maybe 1 - 2db, but that's it.
I agree here, for open taping at concerts with PA systems I can always get my levels to peak between -2 and 0 dB, so in general no need for normalizing/boosting here.
I run more conservatively for classical (which can have huge swings in dynamic range), jazz up close (same), and stealth (since I can't check my levels during the show and if I am running hot the whole time it is tough for me to get my mind off worrying about severe clipping, which makes me enjoy the show less. So I like to back off 5 dB or so and know that I am all good no matter how loud it gets. Plus stealthing I am usually taping classical or jazz also, so same concerns about dynamic range swings + with not being able to see my levels = more conservative on the V3
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Plus I figure for these conservative situations, I am getting max 113 dB dynamic range on the V3 @ 24 bit, so even if I peak at -10 dB on the music (really low!) I am still pulling slightly better resolution than 16 bit with perfect levels. I think this extra dynamic range of the raw 24 bit master really helps the quality of the final normalized and dithered 16 bit CDR version. I don't think it would sound as good if I ran so conservatively with a 16 bit device and then did significant normalization. I had this old Reconstruction sbd DAT (3-8-79?) where the levels on the DAT were really low. I peak normalized the levels to just below 0 before burning it to CD. The normalized version sounds much more in-your-face which is nice, but still sounds kind of flat, like something is missing. I can't put my finger on exactly what, but I just feel like the music is not "all there", which I attribute to the low levels on the original DAT, so effectively the master was maybe a 14 or 15 bit recording. When boosting levels, the volume change helps but since the original master was lacking in ultimate resolution, the boosted version, while sounding louder, still shows the effect of the low original resolution, and maybe this effect is even more pronounced with the louder levels of the normalized version. Anyway, just thinking out loud...