One very significant advantage of working at 24bit when recording is that many lower cost mixers will exhibit higher
distortion as they reach the last few dB's of headroom on each channel. By running the channels a little lower than 0VU when you PFL on the mixer the advantages in less distortion offset the relatively low signal at the A/D(input on recorder).Some transients will actually be higher than the VU/Peak meter will indicate.

I often track at -18dBFS and this leaves plenty of analogue and digital headroom. You may have a slightly lower S/N ratio in the analogue domain (i.e. the mixer) but if you are using something like a Mackie or better then this will be pretty much unnoticeable.

It surprises me when I see LED VU meters on live desk channels running at +15VU (1 LED before max) which occasionally ends up briefly clipping an A/D and probably has a sharp rise in analogue opamp distortion as the device reaches is operational limits.

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