Greetings. Can anyone help? It might be a lot easier than I think. I just got a 2 farad Tsunami cap thats feeding an 800W amp. The cap seems to shut off (no lights) after about 5 min. After I initially charge it, it lights up and looks like its working, but there's no difference in sound between on and off. Is this cap rating too big for the amp? Bless You
Capacitors are energy storage bins. They do not feed amplifiers on a steady pace per say. Capacitors kick in only when an overload occurs. A capacitor will quickly drain out, if it was forced to feed constant power.
Although capacitors defeat their own purpose, there are still people out there that still use them and/or sell them. Personally I believe that they really should not be an option, since they are almost useless.
If you have a system that draws out just below or close to your cars maximum amperage output, you should consider a higher output alternator rather than a capacitor, because an alternator generates electricity whereas a capacitor only borrows electricity from the alternator and drops a little power here and there only when an overload occurs.
Now;
Just because you do not hear any sound difference when a capacitor is on or off it may be due to the fact that even though it was on, it was not required to activate.
Another thing;
Remember that, it takes a multiple of ten times the wattage to allow a speaker to put out twice the volume. This means that if you have an 800 watt RMS amp and you want your volume output to be twice as loud, you would need to increase your power wattage to 8000 watts RMS just to get twice the volume. If you think that you might get more volume by increasing your wattage from 800 watts RMS to 1000 watts RMS, you are wasting your time.
There is hardly a noticeable difference between an amp that is capable of pushing out (say) 5000 watts RMS, pushing out 800 watts RMS at a given time, and then you turn up the volume so that it now pushes out 1000 watts rms. Hope this makes sense.
No, I am not saying that just any 1000 watt RMS amp will not make a speaker capable of sounding louder than any other 800 watt RMS amp, since there are many other things that make an amp louder. That's why I used the 5000 watt RMS amp as an example. This way you get the same source as a comparison between the two wattage powers.
To recap;
Wattage is a measure of how much power is pushed out or received, and it definitely does not mean that it will be louder or quieter.
