That's the strange part... the interface is fixed point, so anything above 0dbfs should clip the converters, even if it isn't clipping in the box.
The only thing that would stop that would be if samplitude was scaling the signal to match the converter's limits...which no other daw does. I will test this out on my version of samplitude in a couple weeks.
All daws run a floating point bit depth internally, but it gets converted to fixed point for the converters. Unless the daw is scaling the output, the converters will.clip. if the daw is scaling the output, then the metering is useless at that point.
I'm not sure if the DAW is scaling anything for the converters, I'll have to look deeper into that...and I can try it using the on-board computer sound card when I get a chance.
That said...the DAW metering is still 100% valid because it's showing you where you really are at, even though you are not hearing the clipping.
So I found this comment by another user on the Samplitude user forum:
On my DAW, with a Lynx AES16 PCI card and Aurora 16 converter, the Lynx meters matched the Samp Pro X meters perfectly. No clip indication all the way up to 0 dbfs, and then a clip at +0.1 dbfs.
However, I had a different situation on my laptop with an Echo Indigo IOx that I use as a headphone amp/ASIO driver. The Indigo has 8 virtual outputs and a master. The 1-2 virtual output meter matched the Pro X meter, but the master out was down by 3 db on the meter. The Indigo meters don't have any clip indication, so I couldn't test to see if it matched the Samp meters. Just for fun, I pushed up the Pro X fader to +12 and the Indigo master meter stayed at -3.
I have no idea why this discrepancy exists, but I always record and mix at low levels, so it's never been an issue for me.
Now he's using an Echo Indigo...where I'm using the Echo Layla24...but it makes me wonder if the Echo boxes have something in their design that prevents the level from going into clipping...???
Like said if I export an audio track from Samplitude while it's hitting above 0dBFS...and then play that exported track back, I can certainly hear clipping.
So it looks like there's something in the converters that prevents it from happening when I'm working from within Samplitude.
I can do some more tests tonight and see if I can sort it out...but honestly, just like the guy in the quote above...I never work with levels in the red anyway, so it's never been an issue. Everything...DAW and converters...stay below 0dBFS.
I don't raise my MB fader above 0 dBFS to compensate for low track levels.
Also, as others confirmed on the Samplitude forums...just because you see overs doesn't mean you are actually clipping, and just because you don't see overs, doesn't mean you are not clipping...the DAW processing depth can "hide" that reality until you export out to a lower bit depth.