I bought a QU-16 recently and did my first serious recording with it today. I’m using it with Digital Performer 9 on a Macbook Pro.
I’m puzzled by what appears to be about a 6 dB discrepancy between the QU-16’s internal metering and what DP’s meters are telling me.
I generally try to set levels so that peaks are between -12 and -9 dBFS. Average levels will depend on source dynamic range, but for most pop sources they’ll tend to be in the -24 to -18 range. Assuming that -18 dBFS = 0 dBU, which I think is the standard these days, that means if I’m getting my preferred levels on the DP meters, I should be seeing peaks between +6 and +9 and average levels between -6 and 0 on the QU-16’s meters. Instead I’m seeing levels at least 6dB higher than that, and I’m frequently seeing the QU-16’s input channel peak LEDs firing even though the levels on the DP meters are never noticeably higher than -9 dBFS.
Can anyone explain what’s going on here? Are the QU meters just ultra-conservative, or am I actually coming close to overdriving the QU’s analog circuits at these input levels? And if it’s the latter, why is there this mysterious attenuation happening between the input metering and Core Audio?
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