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Will someone explain headroom to me?
- Thread starter Thylacine Dream
- Start date
Its like lifting weights with your body.
Max weight.....straining, pushing, overheating and about to turn off from abuse... low headroom
Low weight....easy, slow breathing, cool temperatures, can multitask easily... big headroom
Max weight.....straining, pushing, overheating and about to turn off from abuse... low headroom
Low weight....easy, slow breathing, cool temperatures, can multitask easily... big headroom
As I understand it from a few years working with large sound systems, headroom is how much gain you have before clipping occurs. When working with a sound system, gain is seen in stages: Master level control, individual channel levels, and then an additional gain control on each input. How you set each stage of the gains will determine how much headroom the system will have. In a bass rig, you will normally have 3 gain stages. The bass, the master level control or power amp level, and the input level control or preamp level. How you set each of these stages will determine how much headroom you will have. The bass I run wide open all the time, and both pickups set equal (unless I am looking for a specific sound). It is where your sound starts, and I like it as hot as possible from the get-go. Your Master level or power amps should also be set high (some amps call it post gain). Wide open if it is a poweramp/preamp rig. Then just bring up your input level as far as needed to attain the desired volume. You should, if the rig is adequate for the venue, have lots or room left on the input gain before your system clips, or distortion from the amp occurs This is your headroom. Always try to match your speakers' power handling as closely as possible to your power output. Underpowering or overpowering the speakers will cause unwanted distortion.
No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
NO.
1W------------------------------------------------100W
------------------------------------------^
------------------------------------------^
Your average
Power output
Very little headroom
1W-----------------------------------------------1000W
------------------------------------------ ^
------------^
Your average .............................slap spike
power output
Max Headroom
------------------------------------------^
------------------------------------------^
Your average
Power output
Very little headroom
1W-----------------------------------------------1000W
------------------------------------------ ^
------------^
Your average .............................slap spike
power output
Max Headroom
billfitzmaurice
Commercial User
- Sep 15, 2004
- 16,860
- 278
- 76
- Disclosures
- Owner, Bill Fitzmaurice Loudspeaker Design
Probably won't do much good, as there are tons of threads discussing underpowering already. It sucks having to run 1000 watts of white noise through my speakers all the time. I can't sleep and my neighbors hate me, but at least my speakers aren't distorting from being severely underpowered by being fed 0 watts like they used to when I turned my amps off!
Headroom has nothing to do with amp rated power vs speaker wattage capacity. Headroom in terms of the power amp is, simply put, reserve power. When an amp is at full power clipping can occur. Clipping is when an amp is driven over it's power limit and it causes a "square" wave. If you see this occurance on an oscilloscope it looks like a range of mountains with the highest peaks cut off absolutely flat (or clipped) at the top.
Speaker cone material is designed to "undilate" or go in smooth waves but when it gets fed enough square waves, it will quickly fatigue the speaker cone material and cause a tear. So, even if you have 300 watt speakers and a 100 watt amp, you can blow a speaker if you drive the amp into clipping for long enough.
Headroom clipping can also occur at the preamp stage but is less likely to cause speaker damage although the sound will be distorted. That is why you should always buy an amp that has an input overload indicator and an output clipping indicator (for example, the Eden WTX-500) so you can visually monitor clipping at both input and output stages.
Bottom line is that if you have a big enough power amp that will produce at least twice the power that you will ever need you won't lose speakers to clipping. Or, common sense dictates, if you hear distortion coming from your speakers, turn the volume down.
Speaker cone material is designed to "undilate" or go in smooth waves but when it gets fed enough square waves, it will quickly fatigue the speaker cone material and cause a tear. So, even if you have 300 watt speakers and a 100 watt amp, you can blow a speaker if you drive the amp into clipping for long enough.
Headroom clipping can also occur at the preamp stage but is less likely to cause speaker damage although the sound will be distorted. That is why you should always buy an amp that has an input overload indicator and an output clipping indicator (for example, the Eden WTX-500) so you can visually monitor clipping at both input and output stages.
Bottom line is that if you have a big enough power amp that will produce at least twice the power that you will ever need you won't lose speakers to clipping. Or, common sense dictates, if you hear distortion coming from your speakers, turn the volume down.
billfitzmaurice
Commercial User
- Sep 15, 2004
- 16,860
- 278
- 76
- Disclosures
- Owner, Bill Fitzmaurice Loudspeaker Design
Another one...
Go back to page one and read the entire thread. All of it.
Sheesh, they're coming out of the woodwork.
Hmmm... been playing, for about 15 years, into my Marshall Super Bass (100w) amps driving my 400w 4x12 and 600w 2x15 cabs, with plenty of power section distortion, and I've never blown a speaker. Just sayin'.
Cheers!
These myths just won't die. I don't understand it- but there it is again. Squarewaves do not hurt speakers, nor does "underpowering" them. Yet, we have the same discussion everyday.
I'll just ask this here since knowledgeable people are on here already and my (admittedly terribly worded, some parts didn't even make sense to me later) other thread never got picked up:
1. I'm hearing watts don't matter nearly as much as total number/combined inches of speakers, so does it make more sense for me to get an 8 ohm cab, a second one later if I find I need it, as my first rather than a 4 ohm, even though the head can get louder initially with the latter (more bang for my buck)? I've seen this partially answered on TB before but money's a consideration here
2. Is there a significant difference tonally between neo and ceramic speakers? I'm looking at Avatar cabs and, though heavier, the ceramic-loaded cabs are a bit less money and can handle a good deal more power
1. I'm hearing watts don't matter nearly as much as total number/combined inches of speakers, so does it make more sense for me to get an 8 ohm cab, a second one later if I find I need it, as my first rather than a 4 ohm, even though the head can get louder initially with the latter (more bang for my buck)? I've seen this partially answered on TB before but money's a consideration here
2. Is there a significant difference tonally between neo and ceramic speakers? I'm looking at Avatar cabs and, though heavier, the ceramic-loaded cabs are a bit less money and can handle a good deal more power
Neo (neodymium) speaker magnets are much more expensive and since the magnetic flux density is much higher, less material is needed to achieve what's needed for a speaker. That equates to much less weight. The speaker's power handling capacity is determined by the X-Max, the voice coil's ability to dissipate heat and to some extent, making sure that a vented cabinet's port is tuned properly. If not, the cone will move in the same direction as the air in the port and that gets ugly.
Does anyone have inklings/experience of if said different cabinet designs bring different tones?
