[ZA]

To me, the question is, which is more noticeable, the noise introduced by the calculations taking place when the faders are lowered, or the noise floor of the original A/D conversion?

I always figured it was the latter, and therefore set my levels as high as possible. That way, when you lower the fader, you're lowering the noise, too.

I would love to see some hard numbers on this, though. Digi?
--za