L2 or not before mastering?

My theory is, L2 is a part of the mastering process. It’s up to you to L2 before bouncing the MIX for mastering or not.

Of course it’s not advised to bounce a track with L2, then also run a limiter during Mastering. That would mean limiting/compressing twice!

So for me:

1. Bounce 2 versions of your mixdown, 1 with L2, and 1 without.
2. Then run your favourite mastering program/configuration, and for each of the above MIXDOWN, run the same set of mastering / enable or disable the mastering software’s limiter/compressor respectively, so that you do not LIMIT twice. For example, when working on the MIXDOWN with L2, turn off limiter in the Mastering software.
3. You will end up again with 2 mastered tracks.
4. Now do an A/B testing, for example, load both tracks into your favourite DAW and load other reference tracks in to compare. Pick you favourite. There isn’t any right or wrong. The only thing theoretically wrong is running Limiters/compressors twice – but then again, in rare cases, that works too.
5. My own example for Candlelight – I tested the 2 mastered tracks (1 with L2, the other with the mastering software config’s 670 compressor) – and I picked the L2 version!
6. 1 other thing to consider though.. L2 after mastering?