Levels

I've been a bit of a problem child complaining about my levels going into converters. I'd be using the Scarlett's converters if only their input levels could be turned down, like, a whole lot.
Then, and I swear I was in the shower when this bonked into my mind, I realized that when I was first using the M-Audio 2626 I was running from the Neve preamps directly into the M-Audio's preamps via XLR and wasn't having a problem with the levels.

Gain issues can sneak up on you.

Are you bored out of your mind already? Good. It's about to get worse.
Looking at M-Audio's own specs for the line input (via TRS) levels:

• Maximum Input level +19.6dBu, typical

But on the microphone input:

• Maximum Input level +6.5dBu, no pad

So what does that mean? If you kick the pad in then you should have a maximum input level of +26.5dBu. Now that's a level I can work with. Heck, that's probably about where my Apogees are. I'm not very good at fathoming why the maximum input levels are so low on these devices. Is it because so many -10dBV devices get plugged into them and they're tired of musicians whining they can't get good levels into them? Or because Mackie insert sends aren't +4dBm? Who knows?