I am getting a strong feeling that these input level things and challenges with clean sounds are actually HW related and to be more precise, difference in HW. See my challenge in the topic linked below:
I have been in contact to Neural but no solution yet. I have expressed a worry that not all HW are the same.
In my case I need to use ~ -12dB gain to get clean sound with a clean sound factory Preset, with otherwise Factory Settings (other than the input gain). This happens with all of my humbucker guitars. And I am not the only one, even on this particular board having such challenges with clean tones. With distorted sounds this is more difficult to notice… naturally. So with factory settings, with factory presets I get clipping even without having the meter going to red. To get the clipping gone, I need to go so low with the input gain that I have ~20dB of headroom, looking at the meter. I am getting strong feeling that there are differences with the input stage of QC’s. Just thinking about the serious component shortages they had at one point of the deliveries. What if other persons +10dB is the same as other persons -2dB. To me it starts to seem possible. That would explain a lot of these challenges and concerns.