To be clear, working with professional engineers does not give you the right to state what they believe. To be even more lucid, what you believe is not what all "professional engineers" believe. To imply that only "unprofessional engineers" would think other than you is a logical fallacy and is just as rude as implying anyone who does not believe what you believe should be dismissed as a lunatic.
To be absolutely clear, none of this is of any assistance to the op, who can determine for himself where to set levels based upon a simple experiment.
So far, no one has told me one situation in which the op could not delete a bad recording and try again.
No one has stated the permanent damage done by experimenting with levels.
That leads me to believe this entire debate is nothing more than posturing on your part. What would happen if the op tried recording above -6dB? He might find out your advice wasn't perfect?
A bit of compression will keep the system from overloading should the input exceed safe levels. You guys have never used compression? A small amount of overload does what for a music signal? A little more sustain possibly?
Why not allow the op to find out the result for himself rather than insulting me? He has ears. He has a brain. Let him use both.
The only rule I know of in recording is, there are no hard and fast rules. What you did yesterday is probably not what you will do today. Experiment to find out what works for you today. Experience will guide you if you simply listen and think for yourself.
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