headroom?

[elpingua]

Could someone please define headroom. I dont understand what it means in referance to guitar amps/tone.

Thanks.

 

[Platypus]

Perhaps this isn't the most elegant explanation but here goes.

Headroom describes how much room you have before your amp breaks up naturally. The higher the wattage, the slower to breakup, or reach the top of your headroom.

ie. 50 watts has less headroom than 100 watts and therefore the 50 watt amp will break up faster than the 100 watt one.

Hope this helps.

 

[jbird]

Additionally, as it applies to modern amps with numerous pre-amp gain stages, it is easier to apply to the clean sound/channel of an amp!

 

[Micah]

Additionally, as it applies to modern amps with numerous pre-amp gain stages, it is easier to apply to the clean sound/channel of an amp!

I will second this--my Triple Rectifier has a more buttery and more full of a clean tone than the Single and Duals that I played A-B-C'd @ the music store. Its not the best Ive ever heard but I didnt buy it to play Country & Western with.....I want to cause earthquakes in channels 2 and 3!! :twisted:

 

[Elpelotero]

yup. that's what it is. to add a little more, break up is pretty much that overdriven vintage sound, where it's slightly distorted but you're still on the clean channel. texas blues comes to mind. some people though, have different degrees of breakup, but that's basically what it is. if you want really good cleans, you want a lot of watts and speakers with a high wattag rating so they can handle more volume before breaking up. if you want crunch/distortion, the opposite holds.

 

[jbird]

Wow! We're good! In just over 30 minutes this guy is totally educated in headroom! I tip my suds to you all! :lol:

 

[RR]

My definition pretty much along you guys line

BUT "clean" and "headroom" are not as synonymous as it seems (well my definition).

To me Vintage Clean is warm, and has a slight break up but not so noticeable especially if you are using alnico speakers.

Now headroom I picture => crystal clear, "Mark I or II" Class A/B type (not Simul Class) with EVM-12L speakers. This is great for funk or maybe even reggae,

I dunno know. I know this is subjective and I'm speaking behalf of my opinion of "clean" and "headroom" ...

I remember in an article a pickup winder, maybe Seymour Duncan, customer asked him to wind him some "clean" pickups. So Seymour Duncan thought: "Clean => medium impedance, plenty of fidelty" so he rewound him so low gain pickups.

Then customer disappointed in the pickups said: "I mean 'Santana' clean, you know how he holds notes to sustain, and he doesn't clutter his notes, that's the 'clean' I want."

Seymour Duncan replied back: "That's not necessarily my meaning of 'clean' because he actually plays very distorted with massive overdrive."

So misnomer of the word clean[?] :?

 

[strumminsix]

Mostly agree with RR except most people say headroom when they mean clean headroom.

In most circles if you say "I want clean headroom headroom" you will be advised to get a Fender twin reverb, 2x12 100W 4x6L6 and enough volume clean to take the paint off your walls.

Something to consider on a quest for "clean headroom" is that it is three part:
#1 volume or spls
#2 the amount of air you are pushing (4x12 will move more air than 1x12)
#3 proper tone in the register which allows you to cut in with less volume


Hope this helps.

 

[Elpelotero]

^^^ right. a 4x12 will give you more clean headroom because the sound is dispersed across more surface area. the result is that each individual speaker is not taking on as full of a load and does not break up. a 1x12 is taking on all the load by it's lonesome.

 

[Micah]

Ok--Imagine this......
You have a polish sausage and a bun for it........
To make your sausage bigger its like turning up the preamp.........
with me?... Get your mind out of the gutter!!
The size of the bun is to the sausage like Headroom in the poweramp is to the preamp. The bigger your bun is the more headroom you would say it has. If you ever encounter a situation where your sausage is bigger than your bun...you have breakage in the bun.....or lack of headroom means break-up or overdriving the poweramp causing distortion.
still with me?.... When the bun is bigger than the sausage you have less bulge in the bun causing the sausage to lay cleaner and less stressfully inside of the bun. Make sense?........

The cleaner you want your tone to be the more headroom you want. Now clean tone doesnt mean its not overdriven on the front end and solid on the poweramp end... More headroom means that your tone will be more solid and more of a Hi-Fi sound rather than more of a lo-fi output. Think fuller lows and clearer highs while less headroom brings more of a pronounced mid-range. :wink:

 

[Russ]

In the sense of headroom you can think of it like this.

How loud do you want to play before your sound begins to turn to mush?

You can achieve more headroom from your amp or from your speakers. Headroom is really the sonic ceiling where your sound begins to distort. A good clean channel with a high wattage power section has tons of headroom before it begins to break up. Think of a stereo either home system or car audio. It is the THD that you want to keep low. The objective of any stereo system is to cleanly reproduce your input sounds. This type of system would have the goal of effectively maintaining the highest headroom possible for the system before sounding like crap.

In your guitar application you need to find a good balance to get the tone/gain you are looking for so an extremely high headroom may not be necessarily what you are looking for in contrast to a stereo system.

 

[Guitar55]

I disagree with RR's description of Headroom, in that it is NOT a description of a sound, but rather how loud you can turn up your amp before unwanted distortion occurs. It is pretty subjective since we will each define differently what is unwanted.

As an example, I know guys who can use a 15 or 30 watt amp in a live situation and be happy with it. For me, in an 8-piece band, playing in fairly loud rooms, I need a minimum of a 40 watt amp to be able to get the clean sounds I need at times and be able to hear myself. I actually use an LSC in 100 watt mode for my cleans because of the headroom it delivers.

 

[RR]

I disagree with RR's description of Headroom, in that it is NOT a description of a sound

I think you either missed my point or I gave you a wrong interpertation of the point I trying to get across because I never mentioned "headroom" as a description of tone. I meant to interpertate "clean" as a description of tone.

As strumminsix mentioned "most people say headroom when they mean clean headroom" I think what should be said.

 

[Guitar55]

I must have misunderstood.

You said:

"Now headroom I picture => crystal clear, "Mark I or II" Class A/B type (not Simul Class) with EVM-12L speakers. This is great for funk or maybe even reggae,"

That sounds like a descriotion of a tone to me (headroom = crystal clear).

Not arguing, just pointing out how I interpreted your statement.

 

[RR]

D'oh,

Forget what I said that (Mark I, II EV ... ), that was a bad example.

What if someone like Nile Roger who plays funk, a solid state amp would suit him fine because he wants "headroom clean".

Now in guitarist circles a Fender Twin is what is called "clean" amp clean. But its "tube" warm tone. That what many of us guitarists strive for as "clean" and maybe "headroom" was included as clean. I don't know.

I better quit now, before I stick my foot in my mouth if I haven't done so.

hey Guitar55, I'm cool with you. I know you meant no harm :wink:

 

[Guitar55]

No worries. Just having a discussion.