diff --git a/man/pw-top.1.rst.in b/man/pw-top.1.rst.in
index 7289ab004..57eb040ac 100644
--- a/man/pw-top.1.rst.in
+++ b/man/pw-top.1.rst.in
@@ -19,6 +19,11 @@ DESCRIPTION
 The *pw-top* program provides a dynamic real-time view of the pipewire
 node and device statistics.
 
+A hierarchical view is shown of Driver nodes and follower nodes. The Driver
+nodes are actively using a timer to schedule dataflow in the followers. The
+followers of a driver node as shown below their driver with a + sign in
+a tree-like representation.
+
 The columns presented are as follows:
 
 S
@@ -31,25 +36,85 @@ ID
   The ID of the pipewire node/device, as found in *pw-dump*
 
 QUANT
-  Current quantum at which the device/node is polled.
-  See https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/-/wikis/FAQ#pipewire-buffering-explained
+  The current quantum (for drivers) and the suggested quantum for follower
+  nodes.
+
+  The quantum by itself needs to be divided by the RATE column to calculate
+  the duration of a scheduling period in fractions of a second.
+
+  For a QUANT of 1024 and a RATE of 48000, the duration of one period in the
+  graph is 1024/48000 or 21.3 milliseconds.
+
+  Follower nodes can have a 0 QUANT field, which means that the node does not
+  have a suggestion for the quantum and thus uses what the driver selected.
+
+  The driver will use the lowest quantum of any of the followers. If none of
+  the followers select a quantum, the default quantum in the pipewire configuration
+  file will be used.
+
+  The QUANT on the drivers usually translates directly into the number of audio
+  samples processed per processing cycle of the graph.
+
+  See also https://gitlab.freedesktop.org/pipewire/pipewire/-/wikis/FAQ#pipewire-buffering-explained
 
 RATE
-  Sample rate used for communicating with this device/node.
+  The current rate (for drivers) and the suggested rate for follower
+  nodes.
+
+  This is the rate at which the graph processes data and needs to be combined with
+  the QUANT value to derive the duration of a processing cycle in the graph.
+
+  Some nodes can have a 0 RATE, which means that they don't have any rate
+  suggestion for the graph. Nodes that suggest a rate can make the graph switch
+  rates if the graph is otherwise idle and the new rate is allowed as
+  a possible graph rate (see the pipewire configuration file).
+
+  The RATE on (audio) driver nodes usually also translates directly to the
+  samplerate used by the device. Although some devices might not be able to
+  operate at the given samplerate, in which case resampling will need to be
+  done.
 
 WAIT
+  The waiting time of a node is the elapsed time between when the node
+  is ready to start processing and when it actually started processing.
+
+  For Driver nodes, this is the time between when the node wakes up to
+  start processing the graph and when the driver (and thus also the graph)
+  completes a cycle. The WAIT time for driver is thus the elapsed time
+  processing the graph.
+
+  For follower nodes, it is the time spent between being woken up (when all
+  dependencies of the node are satisfied) and when processing starts. The
+  WAIT time for follower nodes is thus mostly caused by context switching.
 
 BUSY
+  The processing time is started when the node starts processing until it
+  completes and wakes up the next nodes in the graph.
 
 W/Q
   Ratio of WAIT / QUANT.
 
+  The W/Q time of the driver node is a good measure of the graph
+  load. The running averages of the driver W/Q ratios are used as the DSP
+  load in other (JACK) tools.
+
 B/Q
   Ratio of BUSY / QUANT
 
+  This is a good measure of the load of a particular driver or follower
+  node.
+
 ERR
   Total of Xruns and Errors
 
+  Xruns for drivers are when the graph did not complete a cycle. This can
+  be because a node in the graph also has an Xrun. It can also be caused when
+  scheduling delays cause a deadline to be missed, causing a hardware
+  Xrun.
+
+  Xruns for followers are incremented when the node started processing but
+  did not complete before the end of the graph cycle deadline.
+
 NAME
   Name assigned to the device/node, as found in *pw-dump* node.name