Well, I decided to go for the JL Stealthbox that goes under the quad cab rear seat. All I can say that has to be the hardest hitting single 10" sub I've personally ever heard. I'm feeding it 275 watts from a Diamond Audio D3 mono block amp and this thing slams for a single sealed box. I've had a few subs in various cars and have heard many from subtle to ridiculous and I'm really impressed by this thing. No I won't be winning any SPL contests, I'm not moving my windows a 1/2" it's just a nice tight slam that can actually do the hip hop boom thing when need be.

I do have a question, at what point does one really need to add a capacitor to their system? I'm running two amps, one is 75x4, the other 275x1, they have separate power feeds from the battery as they were installed at different times. The 75x4 is powered with an 8AWG, the 275x1 a 4AWG. Should I put a small cap in line with the sub amp?

 

Caps are pointless in almost all audio setups. Fortunately in the past few years people have figured this out. They're meant for big single discharges, not continuous charges.

If need be, you upgrade the alternator that has a higher output to keep up with the draw. You won't need anything like that until you're up over 600wrms and hitting it hard.

 

If you have good amps. a cap is useless. My sub amp is 700 rms alone, mains 250 rms and dont need a cap. and if your impressed with that jl sub now, wait till you run it at its full 500 watt rms capacity.

 

Caps are only really needed with High Current Amps pushing 500+ TRUE watts, and really only do you good when your in an SPL contest trying to get as much juice as you can to the amps without overdrawing your battery or batteries, so you will be fine.

 

When you can see your headlights dimming to the bass line.

 

I would say when your running 500rms all the time, then you would want extra power adders to aid in dimming whether it's upgraded alt. or combination of items. I use a Batcap 300, which is like 300ca and is only 4"x4"x3". It has as much power as 100farad capacitor. I ran my mustang on that tiny little sucker for a few days until I got my Optima put in. I had to order it and I wasn't gonna go without my car...lol it held up fine, never even noticed the battery was gone so it certainly has plenty of power and I paid $130 on ebay.

 

Anything over 1000Watts RMS draw will drain a 1Farad Cap in the first tone or bass note you hear then after that the alternator just sees it as another load to keep refilling.. For the $50-$100 you'll spend on a 1 or 2 farad cap you are much much much better off installing a second matching battery.. Again this is another load on the alternator but one that can hold its own for more then 1 second and let you have a little play time with the car off.. Just get a good isolator to have them seperate when the car is off so they dont drain each other

 

thats a good pt 02Regcab. As for 500 true watts, before i got my amp, i called the manufacturer, and was told that if an amp is worth its weight it will not need a cap due to proper built in capacitance. I run a 700 watt rms amp to my subs and havent had an issue. my stereo is a 4 ch bridged to run the fronts at 125 rms each and i havent had issues with the need of a capacitor(keep in mind that the 4ch isnt near the quality of my sub amp).

 

A good Amplifier power supply will provide all the capacitance it needs for the amp it is driving... Im currently running around 2000watts RMS on bass ( two eD NiNe.1's at 4ohms strapped) and 340watts RMS on highs (Audioson SRX4). I have the factory battery under the hood and a Kinetic 2400 HI Current Stereo battery behind the drivers seat and as long as im cruisin above 1500rpm or so there is no dimming on the Factory Alternator.. Under 1500rpm and obviously it starts to become an issue very fast hehehe.. Basically just turn it down at red lights and stop signs and your fine.. In my time at SPL comps all the guys with serious power wouldnt even joke about installing a capacitor just a waste of time..

 

thanks for the advice everyone