cap questions

FYI...

1- you're going to draw about 130 amps... depending on how long of a wire run you have, you'll need 2 gauge power and ground lines... or (for a longer run) 0 gauge.

2- my reccomendation... 1 to 2 farads... i used to be happy with the "1 farad per 750 watts" rule of thumb.

3- good quality, low electro static resistance caps will discharge faster than lead acid or gel cell batteries (that includes yellow tops). This means that they will in fact supply "juice" to the amplifiers faster than batteries could. That is all a moot point however, since it's not why competitors in SPL are swaying away from capacitor use. It's skewing the topic... so lets get back on topic.

4- caps are being discarded from SPL high power use because the "3 second burp" is way too long to be sustained by a few caps. Hundreds and hundreds of farads would be necessary to sustain a 10 or 20 thousand watt audio system for 3 seconds (on batteries and alternator and caps). The problem is... and we'll put this simply for the sake of keeping me from slitting my wrists here... during that 1st second, the capacitors are stiffening half a volt or so to the amplifiers (if the electrical system is built properly)... well they discharge down to 12.5 or 13 volts due to that insane draw during that 1st second... well now during the 2nd and 3rd seconds the caps are trying to recharge themselves... so they're actually taking power AWAY from the amplifiers so that they can recharge to 14.4 or whatever the alt is putting out. And this is why caps are "bad" for SPL competition... given ENOUGH capacitance, they would be GREAT! But who's got room for 500 farads of legitimate capacitance... and i'm not talking those piece of **** Pyle "500 farad" caps that look like a shoe box.

regardless of time length, you get my point -- the caps do their job, discharge, and then suck amperage away from the amplifiers trying to recharge themselves.