Equalizer I know you want this to lay down and die but consider this.You have had lots of experience right ?? so you're recording process or the method you use must be tried and tested .those of us that came from the nasty old 4track cassette days (or all tape for that matter) all had to deal with a variing amount of tape hiss and background noise which we fought with a hotter signal.
I went from a sb16 (ISA to !!)to a Lexicon Card (incidently I did 3 Radio ads on the SB16)and the main thing I've noticed is how Lazy you can be with your recording process .the noise floor is so low (-98db) you dont need so much signal ,heck if I cant be stuffed getting out the desk I just record my bass guitar straight into the Audiocard and normalise the file.Obviously there was also a huge sound quality improvement as well ,but perhaps in your case the sound quality was more subtle.Sorry again to dredge this up again,and no one has too much money !!