This is one of the problems that is causing the loudness wars. I experienced the same thing. I would push the peak levels to 0.00dB and squash some to get the level up and the cd burner/software/drivers would not let me experience the level as the commercial CD mastering I have done doing it "old school" where their was plenty of dynamic range and I could get legitimate real peaks out of the CD's and plenty of volume and dynamics.
At first, I said, this is great!!! Now folks with a few thousand in software and a few years of experience do not have accsess to true professional mastering which equals job security for me...since I have done this over 2 decades (yes CD over 20 years now) and I can get the gigs again and make everyone happy.
The HHB came up with a slightly different voltage sensitivity on their burners where you could SLAM the hell out of a CD and still leave some dynamics so that made that point (and my lousy selfish attitude) Moot.
Their are ways around the problem.
1. Get the HHB or a masterlink.
2. Use a stand alone CD Recorder analog in. (not the best solution)
3. Use the pre level of a DAT machine analog balanced in and it's digital out to stand alone dig in on the CDR.
4. Use my services.
5. Their are some driver patches avalable for windoze that can boost the level digitally to the CDR but calibration becomes a bitch then.
Face it, I have consumer CD players that distort at their output because of this extra loudness. The folks behind the scenes wanted some room left for us mastering engineers but heavy compression ruins what we do anyway so my advice is still to use a mastering engineer with the proper tools to have you realize your goals.
Mastering is NOT expensive unless you get Bob, Bernie, or one of the others that seem to be "locked in to the game by default"
