A different approach to setting limiters???

BTproductions

I watched a bigger sound company in my area setup a rig with 8 18's powered by a Powersoft K6 and 4 QSC powered 3-way tops. He ran straight from the DJ mixer into the 260 so that the DJ basically had control of the volume. He set his limiters in a way that no matter how loud you cranked the master volume everything only got so far and stopped. Seemingly without sound degradation. I asked and he showed me briefly his settings but it was a bit to quick to take it all in and he had to be off to setup another gig. I know he had over easy off and peak stop on 2db. Attack was set at fastest setting. Hold and release I'm not 100% about but they were both set at lowest or one or the other was? Anyway in this case he was set so that his K6 was only getting into the second green light and I think it was just the threshold setting that was determining how much the amp would put out. It certaintly could have gone higher powering 4 soundbridge ion's but he left it extremely limited and yes the bass was lacking but he left it that way unatteneded all night till he came and packed it up. I would like to do this the same when I run 2 systems in 2 rooms. I could use my 260 in the unattended room with my LA325's and SB850's then go on to working with this UX8800 with my LA460/400 setup which in time I would also like to set the limiters in the UX8800 the same sort of way but their different so one at a time.

What do you guys think? Is a sacrafice to sound quality being made? It didn't seem so... I of course want to get the fullest out of my subs all the time but settings like this if I we're able to prevent my amps from going into clip but all the way up until just before that would be optimal (I think)...

Thanks -Mark

BTproductions

I should say that yes if the DJ mixer ran into the red or above +6 the sound was horrible as of course it was clipping from the source signal then. Never got above the set level on the limiters tho.