I ran a blind test here a while back
I sourced a ‘reference’ high fidelity classical recording and ran it through the OT headphone out to a budget field recorder and sampled it into the OT
I presented the three files and pretty much the jury was split three ways about what was what, there was no consensus, there was little to hear in the projected sounds - what I found (for OT rec), it may even be discussed above or linked, was that the noise floor, the space around the sound, had less ‘space/openess’ to it compared to the source, the field recording was only a little deteriorated (if at all, and also in the same areas) - essentially - the journey through -12db drop at OT ins and following a 12db recovery boost the rendered file was essentially fine, and trivial to the impact the source would undergo if run through time stretching etc
what nobody can offer, unless you meet in the same room is a comparison between direct to amp and fed through OT - I occasionally put the prophet 08 direct to the amp and there is presence of sound which i’d be astonished if a soft synth could deliver or a recording could portray (i must try an A/B soon, but i’d prefer to do it blind)
I’m also not yet convinced about this chase for the last % of gain pre clipping … how big a difference does chasing the highest level make when the recording is immediately subject to a 12db cut internally (reduce by 3/4 or so) … maybe I’m missing something ? This may be good mixing housekeeping on Elektron’s part, but i’d sooner have had the option to bypass that
on the occasional browse of discussion on this, it becomes clear that people mix and match good practice from the old pre-digital days unhelpfully with current kit - clipping is just about the only thing you need to avoid 100% digitally, low recording level is less of an issue compared to capturing on tape was the gyst iirc … too much of the debate is subjective too, a bit like my comment on the prophet presence !
Edit : Inputs not attenuated (as per comment above) on OT, see here