Something for nothing
Join Our Community Subscribe to Paul's PostsWe all like something for nothing: the extra scoop of ice cream, the baker’s dozen, the unexpected set of vibration canceling feet included with our new amp purchase.
Rarely are we pleased with the opposite—something intangible for plenty more. Yet, this is the conundrum we face when considering headroom.
Headroom in amplification—both preamps and amps—offer huge benefits that we never notice until they are missing. Compare a low headroom amplifier with its polar opposite and the problems of compression, increased non-linearities, and eye-squinting strain become apparent.
It’s not easy to plunk down more funds for greater headroom because it requires a leap of faith, and faith is something we all struggle with.
It’s often the invisible we benefit from the most.
I learned my lesson when I had a valve amplifier and changed to less sensitive speakers. I should have seen it coming. I would have thought it a basic issue that choice of amplifier is determined primarily by the power requirements of the speaker. Certainly with my speakers I know where that point is, and I fully accept that other owners use less powerful amplifiers as they suit their listening habits and are a lot cheaper. Whereas the issue with valve amplifiers is primarily their limited power output, solid state gave plenty of cheap power from 40+ years ago and Class D has only made power cheaper. So I suspect anyone these days who runs into these problems has just made a basic mistake of incorrect matching of amplifier with speakers.
West Indies: 1
England: zip
Need I say more?
Quite why you think that is relevant to today’s discussion, I have no idea.
Is it too late to recall Alastair Cook? Or Graham Gooch? Maybe even WG himself.
Sorry, forgot to type ‘Off Topic’
Fat Rat, this one’s for you;
EU -20
UK -20
I’m having even more fun taunting the CCP than I have taunting the Brits. Do you know what the national dish of the UK is proposed to be? Curry. That’s right. And only Indians know how to make it right. That’s why Britain needs Indians to move to Britain so badly and to do their computer programming. Except for greasy fish and chips it’s the only thing the UK has that’s edible. The tradition is to roll up in yesterday’s newspaper into a cone and put the fish and chips in it. The grease dissolves the printer’s ink. That’s what gives it the flavor or as they would say “flavour.” At the rate I’m going the CCP might send a hit squad after me. Talk about politically incorrect. You better read this soon Fat Rat. Paul is going to delete it.
The British curry, whilst having its origins in Indian cuisine, has evolved considerably in the past decades. Whilst traveling in India I have found the curries to be interesting, but inferior to the ‘real thing’ back home. 🙂
I’ve found that the further south you go the better it gets, and our favourite was in Sri Lanka. One exception was the Esphahan restaurant at the Oberoi Agra, a magnificent Mughal restaurant true to its Persian origins. My uncle was from Esfahan and my sister cooks wonderful Persian food, taught by her Iranian mother-in-law. The chef came and offered me a genuine goat Rogan Ghosht and it was historic. The problem in the UK is the lack of a proper tandoor oven.
What you fail to appreciate is that if the English and the Australians sent people to Mars at the same time, and they landed next to each other, the first thing they would discuss is the latest cricket score. These encounters have occurred in the strangest of places, not least on a freezing cold ferry in the middle of the Norwegian winter. Whereas football crowds are segregated by police to stop rival fans killing each other and alcohol is illegal, cricket crowds are mixed and fuelled by alcohol and there is nothing more fun than an afternoon in the sun at a Eng v Aus game. It must be one of the few sports where the love of the game exceeds team loyalty. We just had our first post-Covid match and England lost, but no one really cares, because it was live cricket.
Otherwise, your post is somewhat racist and about 50 years out of date.
I’ve made no secret on the internet about my feelings towards Europe in general and Britain in particular. Today I was just having a little fun. I can’t post here what I post elsewhere. Call me a racist or whatever else you like. Sticks and stones… I expected Paul to delete my posting and I’m surprised he hasn’t already. After that one I posted on CGTN’s site and it was deleted already. It wasn’t directed at China or Chinese people, it was directed at the CCP for the paltry 44 million dollars they’ve spent on flood victim relief they bragged about. I pointed out that Americans spend over 4 times that amount on dog food every day, over 72 billion dollars a year in 2018. The more they delete, the more vicious my attacks and sarcasm become and the funnier I hope. BTW, I’m playing some of the most vicious chess attacks I’ve ever played in my life. You may find audio exciting, I find a great chess battle exciting. What’s your USCF equivalent rating?
You want headroom? The Three Gorges Dam has 22,500 megawatts of headroom… for the time being.
One dam, one flood
Tik Tok, Tik Tok, Tik Tok, Tik Tok.
The more grief we give those idiots the better!
USCF, hmm Been a long time since I had a game at hand. You would not catch me with the 3 move open and close, but I’m a wimp now. My all time favorite was 4D chess for some reason, I could shine, it did raise the level of excitement for me anyway. Ever tried 4D?
This talk of chess, I thought back to my last competitive game against my friend Julian aged 9. I seem to remember losing inside 10 moves and him apologising. But then he was already very good and became a Grandmaster quite rapidly. I googled him and found that his attacking style got him the name “Grandmaster of Disaster”. That summed up my experience. The scary thing, I clicked on images and saw one of us aged about 10, around 1974. It seems I was at the chess club, but certainly had no idea what was going on as I had already retired from the game.
https://imagecollect.com/picture/julian-hodgson-and-the-colet-court-school-chess-club-playing-photo-2656784
That’s cool to look back. It is interesting about Julian being an aggressive player. I was just the opposite, using a slow roll just to see how things opened up and find a location for a wedge to be applied. Went looking for a sample pic of my old 4d board with no luck.
Julian was a very quiet and modest person, wouldn’t say boo to a goose. He’s on my left and on my right is a guy called Nick, who was a bit of a villain, but a good friend, and the last person to be at a chess game. I suspect that photo was staged for a press photographer, we were probably hanging out at the time and told to stare with interest at the chess board, everyone looks engaged except Julian who looks bored senseless.
Right on Paul…preach it Sir !!
“leap of faith”?
Not if you understand the concept of headroom in amplification.
Headroom is easy. You measure the power you are using when listening at your normal volume setting, and then to get the amp power you need you multiply by 200 if you are a purist, 100 if you are a pragmatist, and 10 if you listen exclusively to modern compressed pop/rock!
Headroom is what allows music to breathe effortlessly. Things become loud and soft without compressiom. Most recorded music is compressed to some extent out of necessaty. So it is necessary that the amplification not compress. This happens because of low wattage amplfication or inefficient speakers. The latter use up a lot of amplfication to produce decent volume leaving less wattage for big swings in music. Rule of the thumb is low wattage, very high efficiency speakers and low efficiency speakers, very high wattage amplfication. Excellent post for realistic listening Thanks. Regards.
I realized today that what I called „immediacy“ as a characteristic of active speakers might be another term for „headroom“. At least the effect is similar, active speakers (among other characteristics) sound a bit like passive ones driven with amps having more headroom than we were used to.
Bigger the engine in your car, the more effortless it is at lower speeds. Gotta love headroom!
I’ve experienced headroom limitations in speakers as well as amplifiers. Some speakers, regardless their sensitivity ratings, are simply able to play louder than others before distortion and other symptoms of compression occur. Also, in my experience, most of the speakers that can play really loud have tonality issues that impair their musicality. It’s a fascinating subject.
Glad you’re writing about headroom, Paul, but there’s nothing intangible about it. Those without it will never have effortless sound – hearing uncongested sound for the first time is immediately apparent.
Here’s another one for you Fat Rat since you seem to like my style. Most of the acoustic and electrical energy is in the bass. For the subwoofer you can buy an inexpensive super power class D amplifier like a Crown icore 2 to drive it to madness loud if it doesn’t have one built in already. The midrange and tweeter usually eat up a watt or two. So with a 75 to 100 wpc amplifier for them you have a good 15 or 20 db headroom already to blow them out. This is why it is so important to listen to fuses. Now who makes the best sounding fuses? You’d think Stereophile would do a review. Mr. Atkinson, I know you are not the editor in chief anymore but you still make the measurements. How about a feature article comparing how fuses sound with how they measure? No detail is too small for an audiophile to invest money in and they rely on YOU and your magazine to tell them what to buy. Give us a list of Stereophile class A, B, C, D, E, and F sounding fuses.
Is there any logical reason why you do not perform a review of different fuses of different brands for yourself just for becoming a real expert in today’s (!) fuse technology? It seems that you are just arguing theoretically based on your most limited knowledge (which is inherent for everybody and every expert) which you believe to be universal and indisputable.
Look, I’m not in the business of testing, evaluating, and selling reports about audio equipment. Stereophile magazine is. That’s their stock and trade. That’s the logical reason I don’t do it. I don’t test any of it. I did in school but not since. I let other people do testing for me. They are used to doing it and are presumably skilled and efficient at it. The first thing I was told on my first job was don’t reinvent the wheel. Never build what you can buy (unless of course you happen to be in that business which I’m not.) So while your point is well taken, it’s inane. What knowledge do I have of fuses and other current interrupting devices. Time current curves for one. Coordination studies for another. Maximum voltage for yet another. Now, tell me what you know. You’re the audiophile, not me.
On the topic — occasionally addressed here — of headroom: I asked two questions when this topic come up some time ago and got one answered. Trying again for the second. The first was, “If I have an amp with built-in CLIP indicators (I do), and I never light them up during normal listening, then can I conclude that my amp has sufficient power form my listening needs?” The answer I got was, “yes.” So my second question was, “Why don’t ALL audiophile amps have CLIP indicators?” Didn’t get an answer to that. Given the importance of sufficient headroom for audiophiles, why don’t they? Thx.
David,
I can’t give you a definitive answer, just my suspicions. Firstly, no matter how cheap the indicator is, cost would be a consideration. Secondly, most manufacturers don’t want you to know when their amplifier is clipping. Why would they want to reveal when their amp is not meeting your hopes and expectations, ultimately when it is failing you. Thirdly, there must be low demand for it. I’ve thought about clipping but never an indicator for it. Would be no use to me anyway as where my amp sits I wouldn’t be able to see it, unless I had remote clip indicators!
Why does a 1200 watt monoblock amplifier need headroom? Why does a hi fi speaker have to be able to play at 128 dba? Isn’t that fighting in a loudness war? Why do you need headroom when you can just buy a more powerful amplifier? Just asking.
Headroom is just another color in your box of crayons.
Headroom? …. Memories! I remember when I had a stop off in London coming from the USA..
We changed planes. A British airline completed the last leg of my journey.
The one thing I noticed as unusual (other than seeing thatch roofed homes below)…
was that we were now flying on the other side of the sky.
Maybe the real name of this thread should be nothing for something. Now how much headroom do you think this amplifier Steve Guttenberg raves about here has? You got an extra $1000 floating around you want to throw away? That’ leaves you $200 from your stimulus check to buy a power cord for it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72S0lmpju1s
Soundmind… It was in a band back in the 60’s… The band amps were left in my basement after rehearsal. I would hook up the speaker bottoms to my General Electric (tubes) portable record player that had two side fold-out speakers. When playing straight to the guitar amp speakers I remember being quite impressed with what I heard. I remember listening to a Rolling Stones song and feeling the hall reverberations and deep bass. That portable record player probably put out “maybe” two watts. It all depends upon the speakers. I am sure that on the right kind of speakers a quality two watt tube amp should sound very “satisfying.” “Satisfying” is that elusive quality that can not be measured for.