Agreed, but does anyone actually run their eq. at max boost?

No, of course not. One shouldn't do that. It's better to use the EQ to cut frequencies than to boost them. I run my EQ so that the loudest frequency is at 0db. The others are cut lower than 0db by varying amounts. That one loudest frequency happens to be one of the bass frequencies, which is why I'm concerned about the loudness.

See? If the bass is EQ'd at 0db, and you play the stereo at 0db, then the loudest bass peak in the music is at exactly 100% and doesn't clip. If there's some loudness applied at 0db, then it would start to clip. That's why my ideal setting would have no loudness at -14db. No matter how much I cranked the loudness, or the volume, it wouldn't clip. (Unless of course my EQ had the bass boosted above 0db, but then that would be my problem and it would clip at 0db anyway.)

Standard listening for me is about -30 dB.

You should consider backing off the input gains on your amplifiers. At that level, you're amplifying the system's noise floor quite a bit, and not taking advantage of the full dynamic range of the Empeg.

There's an item in this FAQ which describes how to tune the input gains on the amplifiers.

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Tony Fabris