Arelli, maybe this is a question for you...

I have an older sony amp, that boasts 600watts bridgeable, so I am running my 2 12" jensen subs off it. I know, cheap equipement, but thats ok... It sounds good with the box I have made for it, and it suits my music quite well I think.

Anyways, i don't currently have a CAP in line with my amp. It sounds great as far as I'm concerned. Would a CAP make my amp perform better on the hard bass hits, or is my amp not drawing enough power in the first place to have to worry about it?

Just wondering, cause sharp bass drum hits could use a little sharpening up... Maybe thats just a limitation of my equipment too...

Just wondering...

Generally speaking capictors are the biggest "scam" in the car audio industry.

The rule of thumb:

1 farad for every 50 watts. This is the only way to get a pretty noticable difference out of caps....

so if you have a pyramid 1000 watt amp that puts out 50watts rms then you will be ok.


you say 600 watt sony amp..well I would highly doubt it actually does more than 100 watts rms X2 or 200Wrms bridged. so you are really ok.


If you have a system like mine that puts out in excess of 1000 watts rms...well it might be time for an upgrade. Using a high amperage dmm i was able to see how much the alt puts out before voltage drops and I can have my system up pretty loud....but after past around 1/2 way..it starts to dim like a mother.....


but my lights are 60w a piece....plus low beams.....plus side markers...we are talking around 30amps here of extra power..if the heater or ac is on it is another 20-30amps

since you are running some low end equipment you cant really expect the sq from a a $600 internet system or $1000 mainstream system.

Just a thought.


buy a 200 amp alt if you wanna blow money on a cap...they run around $150-$200 for GMs.

speaking from personal experience a capacitor is worth the money. it doesn't make the bass hit harder but if there are 2 big hits in a row, the second one is going to be just as hard as the first. also, when put on an amp for speakers other than subs a capacitor acts as a noise filter, reduces alternator whine.

ahh, well that makes sense. I think that if I find a cheap enough one, I'll put it in. I dont think I'm going to spend more than 75 bucks on one.