Quote:
Originally Posted by mexicola  Headroom is the amount of gain you have between your noise floor and where you start clipping. |
What you describe is really called total dynamic range. Headroom is the volume difference between whatever you consider "normal" operating level and gross clipping. Since you can consider your normal level to be pretty much anywhere, total dynamic range is the more important parameter. The whole concept of headroom is a throw-back to the days of analog tape, where the hard clipping point is not well defined. With analog tape the distortion creeps up slowly. With digital, as long as your console's clipping point is higher than your sound card or converter input clipping point, you'll be fine.
--Ethan