glossary
Headroom is the margin between your current level and the point where the signal runs out of clean space.
In digital audio, headroom usually means how much room remains below 0 dBFS or a chosen true-peak ceiling. It gives processors and mastering moves space to work without accidental clipping.
Headroom is not the same as quietness. A mix can leave peak space and still have solid perceived loudness if the balance and dynamics are controlled.
Extra headroom lets the mastering chain shape tone, stereo width, and loudness without fighting hidden clipping from the mix export.
A common target is leaving peaks around -6 dBFS on the mix print, but the exact number matters less than avoiding clipped buses and overloaded plugins.
Watch headroom before the limiter, not only on the final output. If every stage is hotter than the last, the master bus may be solving a problem the mix created earlier.
Meter Core keeps peak and loudness context together so you can preserve margin without mixing timidly.