I guess in a sense, clipping the waveform essentially allows you to keep dynamic range. To avoid the clipping (but to keep the gain on the quieter portions) nor

I guess in a sense, clipping the waveform essentially allows you to keep dynamic range. To avoid the clipping (but to keep the gain on the quieter portions) normally one would have to compress it (more than it is / to the point where it would just graze the limits, but not clip). The cost, of course, is the the clip is horribly audible in the final waveform.