"Headroom"

[jerryjg]

I've begun to get this term alot; "headroom", or "clean headroom".Its an audipphile term for transient attack reponse i believe -or something along those lines.
Ive begun to realise just how critical transformer size is to headroom.
In all of my amp in fact, and I have some real monsters( Kustom 6 valve [ 6l6's], Traynor YGL3a [6x 6l6's], i just love the pure clean tone with my volume upto 1&1/2 , and thats too quiet..no more than two. You then realise the supreme power of ideal headroom. At that volume the transformer just has about infinite headroom i guess.
In point of fact, I'd say youd need a transformer the size of one of those city block transformers to get that same sound on 6-8 on the volume.

[ziess]

In guitar circles the term refers to clean power before the onset of distortion. Hence people searching for "less clean headroom" or "more clean headroom from a 5E3" or whatever.
The size of a transformer is only one of many things that affect it; control settings, speaker efficiency, cab construction, circuit, negative feedback (or the lack thereof), the room you're in, the output of the guitar's pickups, effects, power tubes, voltages in the amp etc. etc.

[yankeerob]

Yer - and trust me - that YGL3 is an example of an amp with A LOT of clean headroom - I had a bass player friend of mine who'd borrow my YGL3 and use it as a head when his V-4B was in the shop... drove his SVT cab no probs - I used to borrow his SVT cab for big gigs...

Yer right - in technical terms - but as Tommy points out - the urban definition - amongst us mere guitar mortals - is how much 'clean' you can get before distortion - strictly speaking - harmonic distortion occurs well before the point that is commonly referred to as clipping - this of course being the charm of tube amps...

[Gris]

That spot is pretty much equal to the amp's max wattage too.

Yeah, there are a lot more factors than the OT. Tubes, voltages and speakers are the big three IMO.

[Zoso]

I may use the term incorrectly, but to me, headroom is the ability to hit that warm clean sound at ample volume.