This paper analyzes the error mechanisms that limit the dynamic range (DR) of wide-bandwidth, low-OSR continuous-time (CT) multi-stage noise-shaping (MASH) ΔΣM and proposes a tool, the Signal Leakage Function (SLF), to optimize the architecture, and hence improving DR. The SLF provides new insights on finding the key parameters which influence the inter-stage signal leakage and thus the inter-stage gain (IG). These insights would lead not only to increasing the overall dynamic range in a very power-efficient way, but also decreasing the performance sensitivity to mismatches and other variations.