upgrading your alternator is never a bad thing, it does increase the load on your engine a bit, but increasing the current to charge your battery faster, and less load on the alternator. There are a lot of people running systems that their charging system cannot keep up with, upgrading the battery helps, but the battery is nothing but storage, if you are drawing current faster than it can charge the alternator is working overtime to keep up. Thats why your lights dim at a stop light, and peoples batterys fail prematurely. Caps are a band-aid to an insufficient charging system. And these tiny 1-2 farad caps that people use are junk, they are drained in no less than a couple seconds, you need at least 15+ farads to be of any real difference.
Thats why it blows me away when guys try to put 2-3000 watts RMS in their cars and do nothing to upgrade the charging system, and then wonder why their car all but stalls every time they stop. if you system is drawing 200amps when its being pushed hard, and your alt can only provide somewhere around 100amps, theres a problem. Infact your systems output is limited by how many amps you can provide, if you are running a 2000 watt amp and you cannot supply it with the current it needs to produce peak power, guess what, you don't have 2000 watts.
You left out the part that you could burn up your amps as well
I agree with you as well I was just saying that according to Autosound2000, you should make upgrading the alternator the last thin you do.
Obviously there is only so much that the stock electrical can handle, and once you pass that threshold, you are going to need a larger alternator.
no, most amps will be two ohms stable. Which means they can go as low as 2 ohms. If you have 2 4 ohm subs, you can run them in paralell to make it a 2 ohm load. The lower the ohm load, the more power your amp will be making.
I would sugget using a monoblock amp for your subs and use a 4 channel for your mids and highs.
Take a look at JBL amps, they have a lot of good deals on ebay for them and they are solid amps.
You left out the part that you could burn up your amps as well
I agree with you as well I was just saying that according to Autosound2000, you should make upgrading the alternator the last thin you do.
Obviously there is only so much that the stock electrical can handle, and once you pass that threshold, you are going to need a larger alternator.
Ya, personally im content with a pair of tens running off about 500watts and running a clean 4 channel. Unless you are building an SPL vehicle, imo there is no real need to go much more than that. They make some pretty crazy amps these days but they are very current hungry, if you are driving a sports car it seems counterproductive to go crazy on the audio system.
Yeah, I'm not looking to build an insane stereo system at all. Just want to get GOOD CLEAN sound. Don't need it to be too loud-not trying to impress anyone.
That's why I'm asking everyone which amps would be best with the speakers and subs I've got to maximize everything for the cleanest sound.
So, running an amp at 2 OHMs is OKAY with two 4 OHM amps? I thought they had to run at the same OHMs for max efficiency.
Also, running an amp BRIDGED is not the best idea either for subs right???
Well, obviously I have a lot of learning to do to put in a system properly. I'm certainly willing to do it right. However, could someone please read my original post and see what I have purchased so far/installed and PLEASE recommend the correct amps that I should buy?
Both my speakers and subs say NOMINAL IMPEDANCE @ 4 OHMs. Does this mean I need amps rated at 4 OHMs as well? I'm seeing a lot of 2 OHMs, etc.
Sorry, but I'm a total novice here but I could really use an education on the amps I should get. At this point, I don't care if the amps aren't Planet Audio. I was just trying to be frugal with my money but it looks like you get what you pay for when it comes to amps.
Thanks again.
I touched on this but I realize that it was very vague. I apologies. OK your speakers are rates at 4 Ohms, what is the rated wattage? Specificely the RMS ratting of your speakers. From there you will be matching up an amplifier that will do 75%-100% of that wattage at the same ohm load.
You will find that allot of amps (mono block amps excluded) will list a wattage rating at both 4 Ohms and 2 Ohms.
So say that your rear speakers are rated at 100 Watts RMS with an Nominal Ohm ratign of 4, you would be looking for an amp that puts out 50-100 Watts RMS at 4 Ohms.
The biggest thing you have to watch out for is clipping the amp, that distortion will destroy the speaker.
I can't say that Planet audio amps are a top quality amp, but a couple postings I read in Caraudio.com and diymobileaudio.com didn't trash them. Maybe want to go to those two sites and post a question about them. Do some homework.
You said your subs are 4 ohm or do you mean dual 4 ohm. Both are made and it matters on which it is how you will have to wire it and what ohm amp you need for that wiring.
While I'm thinking about it, we have about 6 sheets of Dynamat Extreme left and a whole roll of FatMat as well. We've only laid down one layer in the car. Today we will be putting some in the inner and outer parts of the door. We also put some in the access holes in the upper deck lid and covered the plastic hatch cover too.
Should I double up the mat anywhere. I've got plenty left.
Thanks again for all your help guys. I'm learning a lot!
I would double mat the hatch if you could. I have one twelve and have the hatch matted and it still rattles a little.
The top left is for if you are going to run each on a separate channel at 2 ohms each. A lot of 2 channel amps are 2 or 4 ohm stable on each channel. Then they are 4 ohm stable for bridged so that would be the bottom left option. The top right option would be for like a class D one channel amp that is 1 ohm stable. Those are usually the best for db's on sub woofers. I know the drawing sucks but I hope it helps.
EVERY SPL, SQL, and SQ competition vehicle I have seen never had a cap. Just the proper amount of reserve batteres to total up the required amount of Ah to power the system.
o ok so a HO alternator costs how much for a 3s??? Im sure it more expensive then your average cap. Crutchfield.com - capacitor . buying a cap and "band aiding it" is much more cost effective.
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Re: Need some advice for my stereo system setup
