JohnVroom

competition forced people to say and do some good things and some odd things to get a leg up on the competition so could it have been a rouse... yes. But I do not think RC is dishonest, he is quite genuine in his opinions and there is thought and engineering behind most of his statements. He is also a nice guy face to face

I am not a fan of capacitors as they are commonly used in car audio, but some manufacturers do not want caps in the system (US Amps) and some do (Zapco). Given the function of a capacitor is to prevent a change in system voltage, I think I would use one to maintain voltage not to supply power to the amplifiers for any appreciable length of time. So having a cap in the stereo system has value up until it starts to discharge, once that happens it is a load on the battery just like the amp and it can no longer maintain system voltage until the cap is recharged

trebor

Glad to see theres still a couple of us that understand.

Don't get a cap to fix dimming lights.....although they sometimes can fix this. Caps aren't a battery, they aren't an alternator and they don't create any voltage, nor are they a replacement for "the big 3" .........they work in conjunction with any and all of these and act as an energy storage buffer to instantly(faster than any battery ever could) supply this energy to your amps during large transients. If your system constantly exceeds this energy buffer then you need to beef up the weak link in the chain elsewhere in your electrical system.

Not all caps are created equal.......stay with the 1 farad canister types and your usually pretty safe, the rule of thumb is 1 farad for every 1k watts. What makes a cap desirable for car audio is it's ultra-low ESR(resistance). An ESR of .001 is ideal, .002 is good and .003 is borderline.....above that and a cap is useless. The large "digital" and carbon/hybrid multi-farad units do not work because their ESR is too high.......sure, they store lots of energy but can't discharge quick enough to do any good.....any battery would be better than one of these units. Don't get sucked into the marketing hype of batteries that act as capacitors either.....they still don't discharge quick enough to do what a low ESR cap can. Be careful of digital readouts and large distribution blocks on caps too, sure they are cool and very pretty but add resistance....I always remove mine.....low resistance is what caps are all about.

Cadi4eVer

If you guys would just stop and think about what you are saying for 2 seconds. A Car stereo is a basic electrical circuit. and at what point in time has a cap ever been bad for any type of electronics?

JohnVroom

When would having a capacitor be bad... 2 times I can think of

1-when it denies power to the amplifier... you said it yourself it is a simple circuit, as previously stated a capacitor discharges faster faster than a battery AND RECHARGES at the same rate so it will consume power when needed most (RC said this too BTW)

2- when the performance gain by using a capacitor can be achieved more inexpensively by using something else (a battery comes to mind). A battery is a genuine power source a cap simply releases stored charge and then it is done.

Cadi4ever- Capacitance can be bad in many circuits BTW... a protective circuit that say opens a circuit on under voltage would have delayed performance with too much line capacitance. Also Cadi I am not sure I would agree with your terminology in an earlier post on the use of capacitor to maintain constant power (even as used in car audio) a cap maintains voltage not power (they are limited in their ability to provide current and that varies with system resistance)

Starterwiz

" Why don't you give me half the money you were going to use, then we'll go out back, I'll kick you in the nuts and we'll call it a day!"

That's the second best line I've heard today!