Amp striving for power?

[DannyD28]

I have a Boss 1200 watt amp in my 95 explorer powering an audiobahn 12 inch. It has always bumped fine until I tried to hook up another 200 watt amp to power some speakers and now when I turn it up pretty loud the sub starts to get really distorted and I lose more and more bass the louder I make it. Some times it almost completly goes out and I have almost no bass. The amps have separate power wires. The power light on the boss amp flickers and dims when the distorted bass hits. It almost seems like it doesnt get enough power or something. Could it be my remote wire? not thick enough? Can anyone help me out here? thanks.


dan.

 

[VairKing]

All the remote wire does is send a trickle of 12 volts to turn on your amp, there really isnt much power going through it, so you can rule that out. You ran new wires from the battery? What gauge is the power wire for the Boss? Do your lights dim when the sub hits?

 

[leenjen]

how old is the amp? unfortunately BOSS amps and subs dont have a very long life expectancy.

 

[DannyD28]

Power wire is 8 gauge, and my lights used to dim before i hooked up the new amp. Now all i get is distored bass.
and leenjen, the amp is about 2 months old.

 

[leenjen]

you should check your ground connection.
where do you have it grounded?

 

[DannyD28]

I have it grounded to the frame. The paint is sanded off where its grounded.

 

[Skippman]

Either the amp is reaching it's "clip" point or you're not cranking out enough power to the amps.

I would suggest a 1 farride cap in line with the sub amps. I would be money that's where the problem is.

 

[DannyD28]

How much is a cap and exactly what do they do? how are they installed?

 

[88vert]

powercaps

Ebay has a great deal on poweramper powercaps great quality I got the cap 8feet of 4 guage wire inline fuse and platinum connectors for 80 shipped to the door awesome deal.I got the guys e-mail address if you want to talk to him direct,he is a real nice gut with fast shipping.Later Brad in Iowa

 

[Skippman]

Time for another lesson in Car Audio.



Capacator

Noun. A device for temporarily storing vast ammounts of power to be discharged rapidly. Measured in Farads.


What does that mean?

Ok, a capacator or CAP is designed to draw voltage from the battery. It stores the voltage until a load is placed on it.

Wire it in series with an amp and it will charge up to it's max power (1 Farad usually) and then just flow current. Should a larger load be required (a sub hitting REALLY hard) the cap discharges its voltage to the amp, thus keeping the power flow steady.

See, your problem is your draw. At certine peaks you're drawing to much power for the vehicles electrical system. The cap will store unused power until it's needed. Think of it as a fast acting battery.

Did I explain it well enough or are you still cloudy?

 

[DannyD28]

Thanks