Again, the gain is just make up. In other words, it comes AFTER any peak reduction and has no influence on the actual reduction. This may not be obvious from the physical arrangement of the knobs but it's the way LA2A's work. So setting it to any pre-defined level is pretty useless soundwise, unless you just want to always make your vocals louder. Set peak reduction to taste, then use make up gain to get back a reasonable level. Switch bypass on/off to compare if you like.