One of my favorite teachers in school, heralded as one of the great recording engineers of our time, has a controversial approach. The great TJ Helmerich is known to run his monitors through an analog limiter WHILE tracking. This is not affecting the sound of the tracks, but is making it so that at all times his ear is making a fair comparison to the albums we all know and love. Genius, if I had analog mastering quality gear I would also do this during tracking and mixing.