Output headroom of most IO's

[Timeline]

It seems the interface producing industry is dead set on producing IO's which only perform to +19. This is cheap for the manufacturers because they only use the chips output capability to drive the output. Some dual chip outputs can produce +22 though and yet the specs still say +19. I know when I had my 192s by MOTU the units did produce allot of heat so I wonder if current followers after the chips were nixed because of that.

I'm disappointed about this. I think most know and understand the benefits of headroom. If you record audio at or near top of your digital meter your levels are nearing or at clip which is unfortunate for peaks which need some breathing room, especially on live recordings.

RME has a very expensive box which does allow a +24 output but it's expensive. Prism also produces proper output headroom but take up two rack spaces, big bucks.

It seems if were ever going to be as good as analog we should at least have +22 minimum.