I dont see why everyone out there hates Pyramid. i own a pyramid amp
and sub and speekers and they all sound great. i bet 99% of the people
out there who bash pyramids porducs by saying there crap, havnt ever
owned, seen or head a pyramid product. one argument is that their amps
output wattage is inflated. for one they list all of their wattage in
peak output so of course it will be alot higher than the rms value.

for example i own a 1000 watt peak amp, and it has a 30 amp fuse so
the rms wattage can be calculated pretty easliy. im going off of a
formula that ive seen on many car audio sites for calculating the rms.
take the number from the fuse (my case its 30) and multiply it by half
of the voltage your battery puts out (ill go with 13 votls) so
30x6.5=195 watts rms. this isnt amazing but 195 rms wattage going into
one 12 inch sub is loud enough to be heard giong down the street.
anyways everyone might be saying now, that they want more so there
gona go pay 400 bucks for some super price inflated amp. well consider
this i only payed 62 bucks for my amp. pretty good deal i would say.
so i get about 3.1 rms wats for every dollar i spent and 16.1 peak
wats pre dollar. how much do you get??

ok second arguement. people say they pay more for sound quality, ok
well consider this. my friend owns an audiobahn amp that puts out
about 400 rms, anyways one day we went to a prking lot and backed out
cars up tail to tail, and hooked my amp to his subs and shi amp to my
subs and compared how thay sounded, and ya know what, i wasnt able to
notice any diffrence in the sound "quality" and neither was he.

and oh ya one more thing just because someones product costs a ton
dosnt necessarily mean that its better. all car audio is marked up a
million percent. the freind who has the audiobahn amp bought it from
an ebay seller.for 195 bucs brand new. in stores the amp isnt suposed
to sell for any less than 400 something dollars. and since the seller
on ebay was making a profit on the amp and audiobahn was also making a
profit on the amp how much do you really think it cost to make.

anyways thers my two cents.
pyramid makes good quality products. that sond and work great. dont
listen to everyone else out there who has never even owned one and
says there crap.

First of all your caluclation is retarded.... so what youre saying is if i
put in a larger fuse ill get more power... which is not true at all..

It is true that current multiplied by voltage gives you power...

however youre calculating DC power... not RMS you should look around for
better formulas if you want to do caluclations.

Also... the 13V u used is not constant... on a large bass hit that
bvoltage may go down to 7 - 10 volts... so now the power has reduced has it
not?

Im not responding saying that perymid products are junk... just your
formula is...

By the way companies that only show peak power are trying to lure people who
have no clue... RMS power is the nuber to be looking at and people dont
realize this.

My 2 cents... kenny
"charlie" wrote in message
om...
I dont see why everyone out there hates Pyramid. i own a pyramid amp
and sub and speekers and they all sound great. i bet 99% of the people
out there who bash pyramids porducs by saying there crap, havnt ever
owned, seen or head a pyramid product. one argument is that their amps
output wattage is inflated. for one they list all of their wattage in
peak output so of course it will be alot higher than the rms value.

for example i own a 1000 watt peak amp, and it has a 30 amp fuse so
the rms wattage can be calculated pretty easliy. im going off of a
formula that ive seen on many car audio sites for calculating the rms.
take the number from the fuse (my case its 30) and multiply it by half
of the voltage your battery puts out (ill go with 13 votls) so
30x6.5=195 watts rms. this isnt amazing but 195 rms wattage going into
one 12 inch sub is loud enough to be heard giong down the street.
anyways everyone might be saying now, that they want more so there
gona go pay 400 bucks for some super price inflated amp. well consider
this i only payed 62 bucks for my amp. pretty good deal i would say.
so i get about 3.1 rms wats for every dollar i spent and 16.1 peak
wats pre dollar. how much do you get??

ok second arguement. people say they pay more for sound quality, ok
well consider this. my friend owns an audiobahn amp that puts out
about 400 rms, anyways one day we went to a prking lot and backed out
cars up tail to tail, and hooked my amp to his subs and shi amp to my
subs and compared how thay sounded, and ya know what, i wasnt able to
notice any diffrence in the sound "quality" and neither was he.

and oh ya one more thing just because someones product costs a ton
dosnt necessarily mean that its better. all car audio is marked up a
million percent. the freind who has the audiobahn amp bought it from
an ebay seller.for 195 bucs brand new. in stores the amp isnt suposed
to sell for any less than 400 something dollars. and since the seller
on ebay was making a profit on the amp and audiobahn was also making a
profit on the amp how much do you really think it cost to make.

anyways thers my two cents.
pyramid makes good quality products. that sond and work great. dont
listen to everyone else out there who has never even owned one and
says there crap.

As an engineer, I have a problem with a company advertising a
"1000-watt" amp that puts out *at most* 200 WRMS, but I agree with you
that as long as you're operating a Pyramid amp in its linear range
(i.e. not clipping it), it will sound just like any other amp out
there putting out the same power operating under similar conditions.

But make no mistake - the 1000W versus 200W difference isn't as simple
as Pyramid just reporting peak numbers instead of RMS numbers.
They're flat-out lying their asses off. Honest RMS and peak numbers
usually differ by a factor of two, not five. The only way your amp
will ever put out a thousand watts is if it catches fire.

Your watts-per-dollar discussion also leaves out a lot of factors,
such as reliability, features, looks, and warranty coverage. There
are some brands that are so notoriously unreliable that I wouldn't use
one if it were free (Rockwood comes to mind as an example).

But it sounds like you see the Pyramid amp for what it is - a very
inexpensive amp that probably can put out an honest 125-175 WRMS.
Since your expectations seem reasonable, and you're happy with the
sound, that's all that matters. I just feel sorry for the people that
bought the same amp, expecting to get 1000 watts out of it. Pyramid
(and other companies like Pyramid) make it hard for consumers to make
an educated decision. If a person doesn't know the difference between
a "1000 Watt" Pyramid amplifier and a "1000 Watt" PPI amp, they're
going to look at the price difference and be very, very confused.

Scott Gardner

On 23 May 2004 19:04:46 -0700, (charlie) wrote:

I dont see why everyone out there hates Pyramid. i own a pyramid amp
and sub and speekers and they all sound great. i bet 99% of the people
out there who bash pyramids porducs by saying there crap, havnt ever
owned, seen or head a pyramid product. one argument is that their amps
output wattage is inflated. for one they list all of their wattage in
peak output so of course it will be alot higher than the rms value.

for example i own a 1000 watt peak amp, and it has a 30 amp fuse so
the rms wattage can be calculated pretty easliy. im going off of a
formula that ive seen on many car audio sites for calculating the rms.
take the number from the fuse (my case its 30) and multiply it by half
of the voltage your battery puts out (ill go with 13 votls) so
30x6.5=195 watts rms. this isnt amazing but 195 rms wattage going into
one 12 inch sub is loud enough to be heard giong down the street.
anyways everyone might be saying now, that they want more so there
gona go pay 400 bucks for some super price inflated amp. well consider
this i only payed 62 bucks for my amp. pretty good deal i would say.
so i get about 3.1 rms wats for every dollar i spent and 16.1 peak
wats pre dollar. how much do you get??

ok second arguement. people say they pay more for sound quality, ok
well consider this. my friend owns an audiobahn amp that puts out
about 400 rms, anyways one day we went to a prking lot and backed out
cars up tail to tail, and hooked my amp to his subs and shi amp to my
subs and compared how thay sounded, and ya know what, i wasnt able to
notice any diffrence in the sound "quality" and neither was he.

and oh ya one more thing just because someones product costs a ton
dosnt necessarily mean that its better. all car audio is marked up a
million percent. the freind who has the audiobahn amp bought it from
an ebay seller.for 195 bucs brand new. in stores the amp isnt suposed
to sell for any less than 400 something dollars. and since the seller
on ebay was making a profit on the amp and audiobahn was also making a
profit on the amp how much do you really think it cost to make.

anyways thers my two cents.
pyramid makes good quality products. that sond and work great. dont
listen to everyone else out there who has never even owned one and
says there crap.

You just explained in great detail why people hate Pyramid. They lie
out their asses about their product specifications.

So your fuse allows for your "1000W" amp to put out up to 200W. How do
you know that the fuse isn't over rated too? Real 200W RMS amps are a
dime a dozen. There's nothing hard about making one. I even built a
180W RMS car amp from scratch while I was in High School.

If you know what you are getting before you buy it it is fine. Buying the
amp expecting 1000 or even 500 watts is the problem. In my three vehicles I
have a Jensen, Baha and Kenwood amps. The Baha (or whatever it is called)
says it has te same power as the Kenwood but from my ears it is definitely
lacking. The best of the three is the Jensen. People make fun of Jensen here
all the time but I keep my mouth shut. It only cost $100 and has been
trouble free for three years. The Kenwood cost $400 11 years ago and is
still running strong. The Baha was $75 and still does the job. All of these
are 4 channel amps in the 50 watt RMS a channel range hooked up with 4
speakers on the front two channels and subs hooked to the back two.
"charlie" wrote in message
om...
I dont see why everyone out there hates Pyramid. i own a pyramid amp
and sub and speekers and they all sound great. i bet 99% of the people
out there who bash pyramids porducs by saying there crap, havnt ever
owned, seen or head a pyramid product. one argument is that their amps
output wattage is inflated. for one they list all of their wattage in
peak output so of course it will be alot higher than the rms value.

for example i own a 1000 watt peak amp, and it has a 30 amp fuse so
the rms wattage can be calculated pretty easliy. im going off of a
formula that ive seen on many car audio sites for calculating the rms.
take the number from the fuse (my case its 30) and multiply it by half
of the voltage your battery puts out (ill go with 13 votls) so
30x6.5=195 watts rms. this isnt amazing but 195 rms wattage going into
one 12 inch sub is loud enough to be heard giong down the street.
anyways everyone might be saying now, that they want more so there
gona go pay 400 bucks for some super price inflated amp. well consider
this i only payed 62 bucks for my amp. pretty good deal i would say.
so i get about 3.1 rms wats for every dollar i spent and 16.1 peak
wats pre dollar. how much do you get??

ok second arguement. people say they pay more for sound quality, ok
well consider this. my friend owns an audiobahn amp that puts out
about 400 rms, anyways one day we went to a prking lot and backed out
cars up tail to tail, and hooked my amp to his subs and shi amp to my
subs and compared how thay sounded, and ya know what, i wasnt able to
notice any diffrence in the sound "quality" and neither was he.

and oh ya one more thing just because someones product costs a ton
dosnt necessarily mean that its better. all car audio is marked up a
million percent. the freind who has the audiobahn amp bought it from
an ebay seller.for 195 bucs brand new. in stores the amp isnt suposed
to sell for any less than 400 something dollars. and since the seller
on ebay was making a profit on the amp and audiobahn was also making a
profit on the amp how much do you really think it cost to make.

anyways thers my two cents.
pyramid makes good quality products. that sond and work great. dont
listen to everyone else out there who has never even owned one and
says there crap.

They're flat-out lying their asses off. Honest RMS and peak numbers
usually differ by a factor of two, not five. The only way your amp
will ever put out a thousand watts is if it catches fire.

I've heard from a couple places that pyramid mfg'ers hook up an amp
and pump more and more voltage thru it until it finally pops.

"It was putting out 1000 watts, it's a 1000 watt amp." They just
forget to mention "At 59 volts when it finally exploded"..

In this hobby, just like any other, you get what you pay for. As a
matter of fact I *did* own a pyramid amp once, it was something like
900-1000w. I thought it was great till I got my hands on a 280w
Kicker amp that blew it away.

A 400w Audiobahn amp doesn't sound the same as your pyramid, I dunno
what you were on that you couldnt tell the difference.

I dont see why everyone out there hates Pyramid. i own a pyramid amp
and sub and speekers and they all sound great. i bet 99% of the people
out there who bash pyramids porducs by saying there crap, havnt ever
owned, seen or head a pyramid product. one argument is that their amps
output wattage is inflated. for one they list all of their wattage in
peak output so of course it will be alot higher than the rms value.

for example i own a 1000 watt peak amp, and it has a 30 amp fuse so
the rms wattage can be calculated pretty easliy. im going off of a
formula that ive seen on many car audio sites for calculating the rms.
take the number from the fuse (my case its 30) and multiply it by half
of the voltage your battery puts out (ill go with 13 votls) so
30x6.5=195 watts rms. this isnt amazing but 195 rms wattage going into
one 12 inch sub is loud enough to be heard giong down the street.
anyways everyone might be saying now, that they want more so there
gona go pay 400 bucks for some super price inflated amp. well consider
this i only payed 62 bucks for my amp. pretty good deal i would say.
so i get about 3.1 rms wats for every dollar i spent and 16.1 peak
wats pre dollar. how much do you get??

ok second arguement. people say they pay more for sound quality, ok
well consider this. my friend owns an audiobahn amp that puts out
about 400 rms, anyways one day we went to a prking lot and backed out
cars up tail to tail, and hooked my amp to his subs and shi amp to my
subs and compared how thay sounded, and ya know what, i wasnt able to
notice any diffrence in the sound "quality" and neither was he.

and oh ya one more thing just because someones product costs a ton
dosnt necessarily mean that its better. all car audio is marked up a
million percent. the freind who has the audiobahn amp bought it from
an ebay seller.for 195 bucs brand new. in stores the amp isnt suposed
to sell for any less than 400 something dollars. and since the seller
on ebay was making a profit on the amp and audiobahn was also making a
profit on the amp how much do you really think it cost to make.

anyways thers my two cents.
pyramid makes good quality products. that sond and work great. dont
listen to everyone else out there who has never even owned one and
says there crap.


It doesn't take an expert to point out the obvious. I'm with you all the
way, Charlie. But to so-called audiophiles, your words are blasphemous.

First of all your caluclation is retarded.... so what youre saying is if
i
put in a larger fuse ill get more power... which is not true at all..

It is true that current multiplied by voltage gives you power...

however youre calculating DC power... not RMS you should look around
for
better formulas if you want to do caluclations.

I agree that the fuse calculation method is flawed. But keep in mind that
fuses ALSO care only about RMS, so his calculation in that respect is
correct. In other words, a fuse rated at 30A can take transients of higher
current.


Also... the 13V u used is not constant... on a large bass hit that
bvoltage may go down to 7 - 10 volts... so now the power has reduced has
it
not?

I'm afraid this isn't true. Your voltage will never drop that low. If it
did, your audio system would shut off and your car would probably stall.

The best of the three is the Jensen. People make fun of Jensen here
all the time but I keep my mouth shut. It only cost $100 and has been
trouble free for three years.

That has generally been my experience with Jensen products as well. Their
HUs are cheaply made (the buttons are crap), but the amps and some of the
speakers are solidly built.

A 400w Audiobahn amp doesn't sound the same as your pyramid, I dunno
what you were on that you couldnt tell the difference.

It could easily sound the same if the subs that the audiobahn was driving
were less efficient (or if it was simply a different car).

I couldn't tell from the original post if he meant that his Pyramid
amp sounded the same **and played as loud** as the Audiobahn, or just
sounded the same at lower volume levels. If the volumes were set such
that each amp was only producing 50 or 75 watts, I could believe that
they would sound the same. But keep cranking them up until the
Pyramid runs out of breath and the Audiobahn keeps going, and you'd
notice a difference then, assuming the subwoofer efficiency and cabin
characteristics in the cars were the same.

Scott Gardner


On Mon, 24 May 2004 14:47:24 -0400, "MZ"
wrote:

A 400w Audiobahn amp doesn't sound the same as your pyramid, I dunno
what you were on that you couldnt tell the difference.

It could easily sound the same if the subs that the audiobahn was driving
were less efficient (or if it was simply a different car).

I couldn't tell from the original post if he meant that his Pyramid
amp sounded the same **and played as loud** as the Audiobahn, or just
sounded the same at lower volume levels.

Those two things are often hard to dissociate.

If the volumes were set such
that each amp was only producing 50 or 75 watts, I could believe that
they would sound the same. But keep cranking them up until the
Pyramid runs out of breath and the Audiobahn keeps going, and you'd
notice a difference then, assuming the subwoofer efficiency and cabin
characteristics in the cars were the same.

He said the Pyramid outperformed the Audiobahn though. That's a difference
I'd assume to be in the acoustical system.

On Mon, 24 May 2004 17:06:20 -0400, "MZ"
wrote:

I couldn't tell from the original post if he meant that his Pyramid
amp sounded the same **and played as loud** as the Audiobahn, or just
sounded the same at lower volume levels.

Those two things are often hard to dissociate.

If the volumes were set such
that each amp was only producing 50 or 75 watts, I could believe that
they would sound the same. But keep cranking them up until the
Pyramid runs out of breath and the Audiobahn keeps going, and you'd
notice a difference then, assuming the subwoofer efficiency and cabin
characteristics in the cars were the same.

He said the Pyramid outperformed the Audiobahn though. That's a difference
I'd assume to be in the acoustical system.


Here's his quote from the original post:

"and hooked my amp to his subs and his amp to my
subs and compared how they sounded, and ya know what, i wasnt able to
notice any difference in the sound "quality" and neither was he."

I just interpreted that to mean that they basically swapped amps
between the two systems and couldn't tell a difference in sound
quality.

If they made an honest attempt to level-match the two systems, and
they weren't playing them loud enough to clip the Pyramid, I'd expect
them to sound the same, too.

Scott Gardner

Pyramid gets its lousy reputation from the fact that ANYONE
can buy the stuff at ANY flea market... Flea markets usually have
BAD installers or NO installers at all... So installed badly or installed
by the customers themselves that may not know what they are doing
makes ALOTS and LOTS of bad pyramid installations....

On the other hand the manufacturers with the BEST reputations
manytimes are very strict about thier distribution and you will likely
only find it where you find decent installers...

Im not sure Pyramid lies about thier power ratings anymore than
many other car stereo manufacturers... Lots of them lie!!
(including MANY of the manufacturers with good reputations)

Pyramid stuff is basicly not less reliable than many other products
if installed properly and can actually sound pretty darned good compared
to many leading products if installed well....

Since so much of it is installed improperly there is lots of busted pyramid
stuff all over the place....

Comparing some pyramid products to other
better name products might show you there are MANY similarities and
in some cases a pyramid piece and a supposedly much better piece by
a big name manufacturer might be exactly the same (must stuff is built
in the same place in china anyway).... So the bad reputation may not
really be deserved....

AND, if you took all the pyramid stuff sold and all your favorite manufacturers

stuff sold you might be suprised to learn Pyamid outsells them! Pyramid is
not a small opperation!! They sell a ZILLION different products and
lots and lots of them each year!!

Im not a big fan of pyramid, in fact im not a big fan of many brands...
But it probably works as well as many brands if installed properly...


Eddie Runner
http://www.installer.com/tech/

I then dare you to measure the voltage right at the amp when you are playing
a current drawing song (lots of bass)

The voltage does drop that low because the wires to the amp have
resistance.. the less resistance in those wires the less voltage drop
across them therefore a better sounding system.

Maybe it wont go to 10V but it goes less then 12 i am sure

Its ohms law it has to... thats why people put huge 1 F caps right near
the amp

Ken
"MZ" wrote in message
...
First of all your caluclation is retarded.... so what youre saying is
if
i
put in a larger fuse ill get more power... which is not true at all..

It is true that current multiplied by voltage gives you power...

however youre calculating DC power... not RMS you should look around
for
better formulas if you want to do caluclations.

I agree that the fuse calculation method is flawed. But keep in mind that
fuses ALSO care only about RMS, so his calculation in that respect is
correct. In other words, a fuse rated at 30A can take transients of
higher
current.


Also... the 13V u used is not constant... on a large bass hit that
bvoltage may go down to 7 - 10 volts... so now the power has reduced
has
it
not?

I'm afraid this isn't true. Your voltage will never drop that low. If it
did, your audio system would shut off and your car would probably stall.

alpine for instance......I think we could agree that they have a good rep in
the mobile audio world....... but.... does their headunit really put out 60
watts X 4....... not even close.

FHLH...... good reputations, HA

"Eddie Runner" wrote in message
...

Im not sure Pyramid lies about thier power ratings anymore than
many other car stereo manufacturers... Lots of them lie!!
(including MANY of the manufacturers with good reputations)

If they made an honest attempt to level-match the two systems, and
they weren't playing them loud enough to clip the Pyramid, I'd expect
them to sound the same, too.

If both amps were line-matched, of equal (or at least very similar) power
output, and neither was being driven to clip they should sound the same. Unless
for some reason one happens to have an obtrusive THD% *well* over 0.10 were
it'll become audible to the human ear.

Im not sure Pyramid lies about thier power ratings anymore than
many other car stereo manufacturers... Lots of them lie!!

Most of them "lie" if that's the word you want to use. Sadly, there seems to be
so many variables in how each company rates RMS and Peak power outputs that
variances will occur, even when the manufacturer is attempting to be honest. I
happen to know that JL's 300/4 (rated at 85x4 if memory serves me) actually
makes somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 watts per channel. And PG's Titanium
series amps are always underrated.

Mercury wrote:

I then dare you to measure the voltage right at the amp when you are playing
a current drawing song (lots of bass)
The voltage does drop that low because the wires to the amp have
resistance.. the less resistance in those wires the less voltage drop
across them therefore a better sounding system.

The voltage CAN drop when you play loud music, the voltage
can drop not only because the amp wire may be too thin (usually folks
run large wires so this isnt usually the real problem) and also because
the cars battery is not of sufficient capacity to keep up or because
the cars alternator cant keep up.

Its ohms law it has to...

Its more than ohms law, it could be your battery or alternator

thats why people put huge 1 F caps right near
the amp

A cap may not help much if the batttery or alternator is not capable
of keeping up

I been installling for a long time and Im convinced Caps cost more
than they actually help a system in many cases...

Eddie Runner

if you dont pay any attention to the INFLLATED POWER RATINGS
of any amp, the pyramid will likely play just about as good as other
amps of the same REAL POWER....

I have heard pyramid amps sound QUITE GOOD!
Just dont think of them as 2000watts cause they aint!

Eddie

Steve Grauman wrote:

If they made an honest attempt to level-match the two systems, and
they weren't playing them loud enough to clip the Pyramid, I'd expect
them to sound the same, too.

If both amps were line-matched, of equal (or at least very similar) power
output, and neither was being driven to clip they should sound the same. Unless
for some reason one happens to have an obtrusive THD% *well* over 0.10 were
it'll become audible to the human ear.

I then dare you to measure the voltage right at the amp when you are
playing
a current drawing song (lots of bass)

I've done it.

The voltage does drop that low because the wires to the amp have
resistance.. the less resistance in those wires the less voltage drop
across them therefore a better sounding system.

V = IR. If your voltage is dropping that low, then you must be using 20
gauge wire or your amps are drawing a thousand Amps. I doubt either of
those are the case.


Maybe it wont go to 10V but it goes less then 12 i am sure

How much lower? In the most extreme cases, it may dip slightly below 12,
depending on how stout your battery is. Keep in mind also that most remote
turn on circuits inside the amplifier cut out in the 10v area (or even
higher for some amps). And these are fast-acting op amp circuits, so even
if they dip to "7-10v" for even a millisecond the amp will shut off.

Its ohms law it has to... thats why people put huge 1 F caps right near
the amp

People put huge 1F caps right near their amps because they're gullible.

Sorry. Misread his quote.

--
Mark
remove "remove" and "spam" to reply


"Scott Gardner" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 24 May 2004 17:06:20 -0400, "MZ"
wrote:

I couldn't tell from the original post if he meant that his Pyramid
amp sounded the same **and played as loud** as the Audiobahn, or just
sounded the same at lower volume levels.

Those two things are often hard to dissociate.

If the volumes were set such
that each amp was only producing 50 or 75 watts, I could believe that
they would sound the same. But keep cranking them up until the
Pyramid runs out of breath and the Audiobahn keeps going, and you'd
notice a difference then, assuming the subwoofer efficiency and cabin
characteristics in the cars were the same.

He said the Pyramid outperformed the Audiobahn though. That's a
difference
I'd assume to be in the acoustical system.


Here's his quote from the original post:

"and hooked my amp to his subs and his amp to my
subs and compared how they sounded, and ya know what, i wasnt able to
notice any difference in the sound "quality" and neither was he."

I just interpreted that to mean that they basically swapped amps
between the two systems and couldn't tell a difference in sound
quality.

If they made an honest attempt to level-match the two systems, and
they weren't playing them loud enough to clip the Pyramid, I'd expect
them to sound the same, too.

Scott Gardner

this is a follow up to mercury the calculation i used tha multiplied
that amperage by half the voltage to get rms, was designed knowing
that the voltage from the battery is not constant because as you said
during a big bass hit the voltage drops. so thats why u multiply the
amperage by the voltage at 50% efficency. basically half the voltage
of the batery. im not saying that this is super acurate. but it gives
a rough estimate of the rms voltage. i tryed this calculation on my
friends audiobahn amp and it came out pretty good. his amp is suposed
to put out 400 wats rms and has a 60 amp fuse so 60x6.5=390 so 10
watts off but its pretty close. anywasy im sorry if i was unclear in
how the formula worked. hope this clears things up

"Mercury" wrote in message .net...
First of all your caluclation is retarded.... so what youre saying is if i
put in a larger fuse ill get more power... which is not true at all..

It is true that current multiplied by voltage gives you power...

however youre calculating DC power... not RMS you should look around for
better formulas if you want to do caluclations.

Also... the 13V u used is not constant... on a large bass hit that
bvoltage may go down to 7 - 10 volts... so now the power has reduced has it
not?

Im not responding saying that perymid products are junk... just your
formula is...

By the way companies that only show peak power are trying to lure people who
have no clue... RMS power is the nuber to be looking at and people dont
realize this.

My 2 cents... kenny
"charlie" wrote in message
om...
I dont see why everyone out there hates Pyramid. i own a pyramid amp
and sub and speekers and they all sound great. i bet 99% of the people
out there who bash pyramids porducs by saying there crap, havnt ever
owned, seen or head a pyramid product. one argument is that their amps
output wattage is inflated. for one they list all of their wattage in
peak output so of course it will be alot higher than the rms value.

for example i own a 1000 watt peak amp, and it has a 30 amp fuse so
the rms wattage can be calculated pretty easliy. im going off of a
formula that ive seen on many car audio sites for calculating the rms.
take the number from the fuse (my case its 30) and multiply it by half
of the voltage your battery puts out (ill go with 13 votls) so
30x6.5=195 watts rms. this isnt amazing but 195 rms wattage going into
one 12 inch sub is loud enough to be heard giong down the street.
anyways everyone might be saying now, that they want more so there
gona go pay 400 bucks for some super price inflated amp. well consider
this i only payed 62 bucks for my amp. pretty good deal i would say.
so i get about 3.1 rms wats for every dollar i spent and 16.1 peak
wats pre dollar. how much do you get??

ok second arguement. people say they pay more for sound quality, ok
well consider this. my friend owns an audiobahn amp that puts out
about 400 rms, anyways one day we went to a prking lot and backed out
cars up tail to tail, and hooked my amp to his subs and shi amp to my
subs and compared how thay sounded, and ya know what, i wasnt able to
notice any diffrence in the sound "quality" and neither was he.

and oh ya one more thing just because someones product costs a ton
dosnt necessarily mean that its better. all car audio is marked up a
million percent. the freind who has the audiobahn amp bought it from
an ebay seller.for 195 bucs brand new. in stores the amp isnt suposed
to sell for any less than 400 something dollars. and since the seller
on ebay was making a profit on the amp and audiobahn was also making a
profit on the amp how much do you really think it cost to make.

anyways thers my two cents.
pyramid makes good quality products. that sond and work great. dont
listen to everyone else out there who has never even owned one and
says there crap.

I would like everybody to explain to me why caps are BS.... i am an
electrical engineer... I know what a cap does and if you think these caps
cannot help you then you are mistaken.

Ill give you that if the car is wired right (large power wires) to the amp
then a cap is not needed.

When resistance builds up in the wire to the amp or the terminal on the amp
cannot accept your 4 guage wire so you strip half the copper off... then
guess what your resistance just went up, also resistance goes up when
running cause the wires warm up..

A good system voltage on a car will be well over 13.5V while running

Batteries and altinators are not made to handle the large current draws of
an amplifier (most peak current draw of well over 50A) guess what.. if
your wire is an ohm you lost 50 volts.. however most wires are not 1 ohm
but fractions of an ohm..

Dont tell me that voltage doesnt drop across a wire because I know it does.

try this site for understanding more about wire
http://www.bnoack.com/index.html?htt...esistance.html

with 4 Guage wire Which is HUGE HUGE you will drop 200mV given you used
10 ft of 4 guage

now make that 8 guage

you drop .335V

This is at 70 degress F most likely... wire gets derated substaintially
with heat.... next time youre blasting your rap check and see what the
temperature of the wire is... you shouldnt be surprized to find out that
youre loosing .5 - 1V pretty easily


You said Caps are junk?

You know what a cap is? Its a small version of the batttery under your
hood... except your battery can be considered many Farads as a cap that is
very expensive may be 1 or 2 farads.

Locating a cap right next to the Amp will help in providing current to the
amp if it needs it (a cap's voltage cannot cahge instontainusly (spelling)
it is the properity of a cap)

therefore it will hold its voltage through those large current drawing bass
hits.

Anyway before you try to make me look like an idiot do some research

The reason your audio equipemnt needs 14 volts to function is because of the
very voltage drop we speak of. If you had a rock solid supply of 12 V to
the amp you would not hav a problem running at 12V

Ken
"Lawrence K. Evert Jr." wrote in message
...

"Mercury" wrote in message
. net...
I then dare you to measure the voltage right at the amp when you are
playing
a current drawing song (lots of bass)

Try owning a 66 chrysler. When the base hits after starting the car the
audio system shuts off due (1) to the mechanical voltage regulator, and
(2)
that audio equipment, high or low end, needs around 14 volts to function
effectively and the charging system has not fully recovered from the
current
draw associated with starting the car.



The voltage does drop that low because the wires to the amp have
resistance.. the less resistance in those wires the less voltage drop
across them therefore a better sounding system.

Maybe it wont go to 10V but it goes less then 12 i am sure

Maybe on a small motorcycle with a 1,000,000 watt amp and a 30 inch
woofer,
or my son's power wheels (only because of the 6 volt battery).


Its ohms law it has to... thats why people put huge 1 F caps right
near
the amp

Caps are BS


Ken
"MZ" wrote in message
...
First of all your caluclation is retarded.... so what youre saying
is
if
i
put in a larger fuse ill get more power... which is not true at
all..

It is true that current multiplied by voltage gives you power...

however youre calculating DC power... not RMS you should look
around
for
better formulas if you want to do caluclations.

I agree that the fuse calculation method is flawed. But keep in mind
that
fuses ALSO care only about RMS, so his calculation in that respect is
correct. In other words, a fuse rated at 30A can take transients of
higher
current.


Also... the 13V u used is not constant... on a large bass hit that
bvoltage may go down to 7 - 10 volts... so now the power has
reduced
has
it
not?

I'm afraid this isn't true. Your voltage will never drop that low.
If
it
did, your audio system would shut off and your car would probably
stall.

The 50% factor has nothing to do with voltage drops during periods of
peak current draw. The 50% correction factor is because most class AB
amplifiers are only 50% efficient, so to provide 400 WRMS to the
speakers, they must draw approximately twice amount from the car's
electrical system.

Scott Gardner


On 24 May 2004 16:53:08 -0700, (charlie) wrote:

this is a follow up to mercury the calculation i used tha multiplied
that amperage by half the voltage to get rms, was designed knowing
that the voltage from the battery is not constant because as you said
during a big bass hit the voltage drops. so thats why u multiply the
amperage by the voltage at 50% efficency. basically half the voltage
of the batery. im not saying that this is super acurate. but it gives
a rough estimate of the rms voltage. i tryed this calculation on my
friends audiobahn amp and it came out pretty good. his amp is suposed
to put out 400 wats rms and has a 60 amp fuse so 60x6.5=390 so 10
watts off but its pretty close. anywasy im sorry if i was unclear in
how the formula worked. hope this clears things up

"Mercury" wrote in message .net...
First of all your caluclation is retarded.... so what youre saying is if i
put in a larger fuse ill get more power... which is not true at all..

It is true that current multiplied by voltage gives you power...

however youre calculating DC power... not RMS you should look around for
better formulas if you want to do caluclations.

Also... the 13V u used is not constant... on a large bass hit that
bvoltage may go down to 7 - 10 volts... so now the power has reduced has it
not?

Im not responding saying that perymid products are junk... just your
formula is...

By the way companies that only show peak power are trying to lure people who
have no clue... RMS power is the nuber to be looking at and people dont
realize this.

My 2 cents... kenny
"charlie" wrote in message
om...
I dont see why everyone out there hates Pyramid. i own a pyramid amp
and sub and speekers and they all sound great. i bet 99% of the people
out there who bash pyramids porducs by saying there crap, havnt ever
owned, seen or head a pyramid product. one argument is that their amps
output wattage is inflated. for one they list all of their wattage in
peak output so of course it will be alot higher than the rms value.

for example i own a 1000 watt peak amp, and it has a 30 amp fuse so
the rms wattage can be calculated pretty easliy. im going off of a
formula that ive seen on many car audio sites for calculating the rms.
take the number from the fuse (my case its 30) and multiply it by half
of the voltage your battery puts out (ill go with 13 votls) so
30x6.5=195 watts rms. this isnt amazing but 195 rms wattage going into
one 12 inch sub is loud enough to be heard giong down the street.
anyways everyone might be saying now, that they want more so there
gona go pay 400 bucks for some super price inflated amp. well consider
this i only payed 62 bucks for my amp. pretty good deal i would say.
so i get about 3.1 rms wats for every dollar i spent and 16.1 peak
wats pre dollar. how much do you get??

ok second arguement. people say they pay more for sound quality, ok
well consider this. my friend owns an audiobahn amp that puts out
about 400 rms, anyways one day we went to a prking lot and backed out
cars up tail to tail, and hooked my amp to his subs and shi amp to my
subs and compared how thay sounded, and ya know what, i wasnt able to
notice any diffrence in the sound "quality" and neither was he.

and oh ya one more thing just because someones product costs a ton
dosnt necessarily mean that its better. all car audio is marked up a
million percent. the freind who has the audiobahn amp bought it from
an ebay seller.for 195 bucs brand new. in stores the amp isnt suposed
to sell for any less than 400 something dollars. and since the seller
on ebay was making a profit on the amp and audiobahn was also making a
profit on the amp how much do you really think it cost to make.

anyways thers my two cents.
pyramid makes good quality products. that sond and work great. dont
listen to everyone else out there who has never even owned one and
says there crap.

I would like everybody to explain to me why caps are BS.... i am an
electrical engineer... I know what a cap does and if you think these caps
cannot help you then you are mistaken.

With your engineering background, surely you can describe in detail how
capacitors are of any use.

Ill give you that if the car is wired right (large power wires) to the amp
then a cap is not needed.

When resistance builds up in the wire

How does resistance "build up" in a wire?

to the amp or the terminal on the amp
cannot accept your 4 guage wire so you strip half the copper off...

What would stripping half the copper off do that's detrimental?

then
guess what your resistance just went up, also resistance goes up when
running cause the wires warm up..

How warm do they get?


A good system voltage on a car will be well over 13.5V while running

Batteries and altinators are not made to handle the large current draws of
an amplifier (most peak current draw of well over 50A) guess what.. if
your wire is an ohm you lost 50 volts..

That's why nobody ever uses one ohm wires.

however most wires are not 1 ohm
but fractions of an ohm..

Dont tell me that voltage doesnt drop across a wire because I know it
does.

try this site for understanding more about wire

http://www.bnoack.com/index.html?htt...esistance.html

with 4 Guage wire Which is HUGE HUGE you will drop 200mV given you
used
10 ft of 4 guage

With how much current draw? Betcha the output impedance of your alternator
is bigger than the impedance of the wire.


now make that 8 guage

you drop .335V

This is at 70 degress F most likely... wire gets derated substaintially
with heat....

Maybe if it's made of tungsten...

next time youre blasting your rap check and see what the
temperature of the wire is... you shouldnt be surprized to find out that
youre loosing .5 - 1V pretty easily

That's typical. So how will that hurt anything? Are you going to suggest
that such a drop will be audible?




You said Caps are junk?

You know what a cap is? Its a small version of the batttery under your
hood... except your battery can be considered many Farads as a cap that
is
very expensive may be 1 or 2 farads.

A battery is not a capacitor, and as such, doesn't have an associated amount
of capacitance.

Locating a cap right next to the Amp will help in providing current to the
amp if it needs it (a cap's voltage cannot cahge instontainusly (spelling)
it is the properity of a cap)

So how do the capacitors inside the amplifier fare?


therefore it will hold its voltage through those large current drawing
bass
hits.

Anyway before you try to make me look like an idiot do some research

I'm calling bull**** on your electrical engineer claim.

Say what?

Charlie is correct. Most self-proclaimed "audiophiles" are not.

"Mercury" wrote in message
. net...
I then dare you to measure the voltage right at the amp when you are
playing
a current drawing song (lots of bass)

Try owning a 66 chrysler. When the base hits after starting the car the
audio system shuts off due (1) to the mechanical voltage regulator, and (2)
that audio equipment, high or low end, needs around 14 volts to function
effectively and the charging system has not fully recovered from the current
draw associated with starting the car.



The voltage does drop that low because the wires to the amp have
resistance.. the less resistance in those wires the less voltage drop
across them therefore a better sounding system.

Maybe it wont go to 10V but it goes less then 12 i am sure

Maybe on a small motorcycle with a 1,000,000 watt amp and a 30 inch woofer,
or my son's power wheels (only because of the 6 volt battery).


Its ohms law it has to... thats why people put huge 1 F caps right near
the amp

Caps are BS


Ken
"MZ" wrote in message
...
First of all your caluclation is retarded.... so what youre saying is
if
i
put in a larger fuse ill get more power... which is not true at
all..

It is true that current multiplied by voltage gives you power...

however youre calculating DC power... not RMS you should look
around
for
better formulas if you want to do caluclations.

I agree that the fuse calculation method is flawed. But keep in mind
that
fuses ALSO care only about RMS, so his calculation in that respect is
correct. In other words, a fuse rated at 30A can take transients of
higher
current.


Also... the 13V u used is not constant... on a large bass hit that
bvoltage may go down to 7 - 10 volts... so now the power has reduced
has
it
not?

I'm afraid this isn't true. Your voltage will never drop that low. If
it
did, your audio system would shut off and your car would probably stall.

"Mercury" wrote in message
news
I would like everybody to explain to me why caps are BS.... i am an
electrical engineer...

Isn't is amazing how everyone is an electrical engineer on the internet?

I know what a cap does and if you think these caps
cannot help you then you are mistaken.

Read a little further and you will prove that you do not.

When resistance builds up in the wire to the amp or the terminal on the
amp
cannot accept your 4 guage wire so you strip half the copper off... then
guess what your resistance just went up, also resistance goes up when
running cause the wires warm up..

Resistance doesn't "build up". Stripping half of the unneeded copper away
won't be detrimental.



You said Caps are junk?

You know what a cap is? Its a small version of the batttery under your
hood...

And there goes your EE claim. A small battery would be an example of a small
version of the one under the hood. Not a cap.

except your battery can be considered many Farads as a cap that is
very expensive may be 1 or 2 farads.

Locating a cap right next to the Amp will help in providing current to the
amp if it needs it (a cap's voltage cannot cahge instontainusly (spelling)
it is the properity of a cap)

It will "help" for an insignifigant amount of time.

therefore it will hold its voltage through those large current drawing
bass
hits.

It will only do any good for a brief second. An external cap is not
effective with long current draws.

Anyway before you try to make me look like an idiot do some research

Why don't you first. A cap is not a battery. The amplifier designers already
designed the amp with enough capacitance. The voltage drop you speak of is
usually insignifigant. If the voltage drops down to 7-10 volts then your
amps would shut off.
I think we could go on, but I think that's enough to debunk your claim of
being an Electrical Engineer.

Les
Not an EE.

In my experiance JL has always underrated their amps, thus the nickname
"cheater amp" comes to mind if any of you have heard of older JL amps
referred to as such. I have an old 360a that kicks the crap out of 2
JL12W08's hooked up to it, (and if you couldn't tell) they are 8 ohm
speakers.

"Steve Grauman" wrote in message
...
Im not sure Pyramid lies about thier power ratings anymore than
many other car stereo manufacturers... Lots of them lie!!

Most of them "lie" if that's the word you want to use. Sadly, there seems
to be
so many variables in how each company rates RMS and Peak power outputs
that
variances will occur, even when the manufacturer is attempting to be
honest. I
happen to know that JL's 300/4 (rated at 85x4 if memory serves me)
actually
makes somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 watts per channel. And PG's
Titanium
series amps are always underrated.

Say what?

"MZ" wrote in message
...
I dont see why everyone out there hates Pyramid. i own a pyramid amp
and sub and speekers and they all sound great. i bet 99% of the people
out there who bash pyramids porducs by saying there crap, havnt ever
owned, seen or head a pyramid product. one argument is that their amps
output wattage is inflated. for one they list all of their wattage in
peak output so of course it will be alot higher than the rms value.

for example i own a 1000 watt peak amp, and it has a 30 amp fuse so
the rms wattage can be calculated pretty easliy. im going off of a
formula that ive seen on many car audio sites for calculating the rms.
take the number from the fuse (my case its 30) and multiply it by half
of the voltage your battery puts out (ill go with 13 votls) so
30x6.5=195 watts rms. this isnt amazing but 195 rms wattage going into
one 12 inch sub is loud enough to be heard giong down the street.
anyways everyone might be saying now, that they want more so there
gona go pay 400 bucks for some super price inflated amp. well consider
this i only payed 62 bucks for my amp. pretty good deal i would say.
so i get about 3.1 rms wats for every dollar i spent and 16.1 peak
wats pre dollar. how much do you get??

ok second arguement. people say they pay more for sound quality, ok
well consider this. my friend owns an audiobahn amp that puts out
about 400 rms, anyways one day we went to a prking lot and backed out
cars up tail to tail, and hooked my amp to his subs and shi amp to my
subs and compared how thay sounded, and ya know what, i wasnt able to
notice any diffrence in the sound "quality" and neither was he.

and oh ya one more thing just because someones product costs a ton
dosnt necessarily mean that its better. all car audio is marked up a
million percent. the freind who has the audiobahn amp bought it from
an ebay seller.for 195 bucs brand new. in stores the amp isnt suposed
to sell for any less than 400 something dollars. and since the seller
on ebay was making a profit on the amp and audiobahn was also making a
profit on the amp how much do you really think it cost to make.

anyways thers my two cents.
pyramid makes good quality products. that sond and work great. dont
listen to everyone else out there who has never even owned one and
says there crap.


It doesn't take an expert to point out the obvious. I'm with you all the
way, Charlie. But to so-called audiophiles, your words are blasphemous.

My understanding of a capacitor is that it stores sufficient amounts of power to make up
for momentary (short) periods when the current drops below the specifications for the
circuit.

I'm not an electrical engineer but I have completed an extensive course on recording
engineering. Still, it was my buddy the PC tech who told me about capicitors. (Had to do
with bulging capacitors on all brands of motherboards made in 2001-2002 becuse they all
bought defective caps from a half-baked factory in China.)
--
Todd

My understanding of a capacitor is that it stores sufficient amounts of
power to make up
for momentary (short) periods when the current drops below the
specifications for the
circuit.

I'm not an electrical engineer but I have completed an extensive course on
recording
engineering. Still, it was my buddy the PC tech who told me about
capicitors. (Had to do
with bulging capacitors on all brands of motherboards made in 2001-2002
becuse they all
bought defective caps from a half-baked factory in China.)

Two things:

1) Capacitors don't store power. They store charge. The distinction is
important because storing power implies that you can gain power output by
installing a capacitor. This is misleading.

2) Voltage (not current) drops during large current draws. So what? The
difference is below audibility. This can be demonstrated qualitatively and
proven quantitatively using simple electrical theory.

Most of this is explained in the FAQ. And some of it is even right.

www.mobileaudio.com/rac-faq

My terminology was wrong but the theory was correct
--
Todd

"Mercury" wrote in message
news
I would like everybody to explain to me why caps are BS.... i am an
electrical engineer... I know what a cap does and if you think these caps
cannot help you then you are mistaken.


I am ACTUALLY an EE and get paid to be one! But, I'll let the non EE's have
at you. Being an EE I am reluctant to admit it on the net, I prefer to
claim to be a bridge welder, or professional world saving action hero. It
sounds soooo much more exciting.

Chad

"Todd" wrote in message
news:wPzsc.577329$oR5.407533@pd7tw3no...
My understanding of a capacitor is that it stores sufficient amounts of
power to make up
for momentary (short) periods when the current drops below the
specifications for the
circuit.

I'm not an electrical engineer but I have completed an extensive course on
recording
engineering. Still, it was my buddy the PC tech who told me about
capicitors. (Had to do
with bulging capacitors on all brands of motherboards made in 2001-2002
becuse they all
bought defective caps from a half-baked factory in China.)
--
Todd



I think I know which ones. actually if it's the ones I thought they
underspec'd the temp rating and placed them REALLY close to the CPU, OOPS!

Worse yet they were used in our radio automation system and I spent many o
night replacing mother boards all while shoving CD's trying to keep my ass
on the air!

Chad

"MZ" wrote in message
...
1) Capacitors don't store power. They store charge. The distinction is
important because storing power implies that you can gain power output by
installing a capacitor. This is misleading.


Even easier, you can't store power since power is the measure of produced
effort. But you can store energy, to make power.

Regardless if you need a cap then you have an underdesigned amp.

Chad

there have ALWAYS been folks that under rate (or rate properly)
thier amplifiers, but MOST LIE ABOUT IT.....

Just look around.

"Lawrence K. Evert Jr." wrote:

In my experiance JL has always underrated their amps, thus the nickname
"cheater amp" comes to mind if any of you have heard of older JL amps
referred to as such. I have an old 360a that kicks the crap out of 2
JL12W08's hooked up to it, (and if you couldn't tell) they are 8 ohm
speakers.

"Steve Grauman" wrote in message
...
Im not sure Pyramid lies about thier power ratings anymore than
many other car stereo manufacturers... Lots of them lie!!

Most of them "lie" if that's the word you want to use. Sadly, there seems
to be
so many variables in how each company rates RMS and Peak power outputs
that
variances will occur, even when the manufacturer is attempting to be
honest. I
happen to know that JL's 300/4 (rated at 85x4 if memory serves me)
actually
makes somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 watts per channel. And PG's
Titanium
series amps are always underrated.

Mercury wrote:

I would like everybody to explain to me why caps are BS.... i am an
electrical engineer... I know what a cap does and if you think these caps
cannot help you then you are mistaken.

As a driver of electric trains, you should be smart enough to look this stuff up.

A cap wont hurt anything, except your wallet cause they aint cheap!
Havin more juice if you need it is a good thing...
But the question is, do you really need it..??

Car Amps have a 12 volt capacitor bank inside them already on the power
wire inputs... Dont the amp manufacturers make this cap bank big enough???
One primary goal of this input cap bank is to prevent the switching of the
amplifiers power supply from feeding back into the cars electrical system.

Car amps have another cap bank on the power rails after the power supply.
(typicly + and - 40 volts or more)
This is where the juice is stored and ready to use for the output transistors.
This is really where alot of energy should be stored for use.

If I wanted to add a cap where it would seem to be the best, it would be
on the power supply rails not the amp 12 volt input.... Wouldnt it be better
to store several farads of 90 volts than 12 volts? Wouldnt it be bettter to
have the storage right where the juice is ready to be used, or at the amps inputs
where much could be lost through the bottleneck of the DC - AC - DC
power supply of the amplifier...??

In the early days of car amps many of us experemented with big caps
on the power inputs (mostly as noise filters) and on the power supply rails
(as storage devices)...

Some one saw what we were doing and decided to
buy a bunch of surplus caps and rebadge them with fold plated terminals and
then ANYONE could have stuff just like the early PRO competitors used.

Now I like to refer to them as JEWELRY CAPS.....

Most folks that have conducted actuall listening tests have come up with
NO DIFFERENCE..... SO is it worth it?


Ill give you that if the car is wired right (large power wires) to the amp
then a cap is not needed.

Most cars are OVERWIRED!!!
An amp that would easily work with an 8 gu wire is manytimes wired
with a 4 gu nowdays....

When resistance builds up in the wire to the amp or the terminal on the amp

How does resistance build up?
Sounds like your saying builds up over time..?? Or as it heat us??
Or as you move along the length of the wire?

cannot accept your 4 guage wire so you strip half the copper off...

If your talking about striping the wire to put it into a connector that is
acceptable and not a problem... If your en engineer (toot toot) then
you oughta know the wire being thinner for a small time may not be
a hindrence ... your resistance is r1+r2+r3+r4, ... Might be better
to have no connectors at all, but thats not usually possible...And usually
not a problem if they are connected well.

then
guess what your resistance just went up,

resistance goes up on EVERY connector, and every distribution block and
every inch of wire you use.... with R*I you can see what your voltage loss
is, which for most overbuilt car systems is not much....

PLUS, more to the point, a cap is only storage for a very small period of time,
it will probably not work as a band aid to bad wireing... So wire it right and
forget the cap...

also resistance goes up when
running cause the wires warm up..

have you ever felt a wire when a car amp was running?
A wellinstalled systen will not cause the wire to get hot enough
to cause any measureable resistance change.

A good system voltage on a car will be well over 13.5V while running

thats the alternator voltage..... Since alot of alternators are not that beefy,
its pretty common to measure a voltage fluctuation at the amplifier between
the 13.5 of the wimpy alternator and the 12 volts of the car battery. This
voltage fluctuation has nothing to do with striping the 4 gu wire wrong, it
just has to do with an alternator being wimply or old or broken...

A cap could help fill in here, but bass notes are pretty lengthy nowdays
so a cap will still just discharge on a bass note not making a whole lot
of difference in the voltage fluctuation...

AND probably even more important, the measureable voltage fluctuation
that you may measure between alternetor and bettery voltage is not enough
to HEAR anything detrimental through your stereo.... so
1) you cant hear the problem
2) if you cant hear the problem you cant hear the cap even if it fixed the problem.


Batteries and altinators are not made to handle the large current draws of
an amplifier (most peak current draw of well over 50A)

betteries sure are!!
Battereis are there to start the car, whch could take well over 50 amps!

guess what.. if
your wire is an ohm you lost 50 volts..

put a 1 ohm resistor on your 12 volt power supply, measure it and even through
the 1 ohm resistor and you will still see 12 volts! According to your statement we
would loose 50 volts so I guess your saying we should see -38 volts.... ha ha ha

Even if you have a 50 ohm resistor you will STILL see 12 volts....

remember I*E

For the voltage loss to occur there must be current flow, the more current the
more loss.... its not JUST the resistance!!! It is both!

Dont tell me that voltage doesnt drop across a wire because I know it does.

You dont seem to be very well versed on the subject....
Your en electrical engineer, think about those train tracks that go round and round.

its a simple concept really!

with 4 Guage wire Which is HUGE HUGE you will drop 200mV given you used
10 ft of 4 guage

NOT TRUE!!!
It depends on the current draw.

now make that 8 guage
you drop .335V

NOT TRUE!!
Again it would depend on the current draw.

Voltage drop calculations must have current and resistance....

I just did a google and one web site says its
4 gu .000292 r per ft
8 gu .000739 r per ft
using these figgures voltage drop is as follows.

start with 14 volts and 15 ft of wire

4gu 14volts - 1amp - 0.00438 drop 14.00 left
8gu 14volts - 1amp - 0.01108 drop 13.99 left
4gu 14volts - 10amp - 0.04380 drop 13.96 left
8gu 14volts - 10amp - 0.11085 drop 13.89 left
4gu 14volts - 25amp - 0.10950 drop 13.89 left
8gu 14volts - 25amp - 0.27712 drop 13.72 left
4gu 14volts - 50amp - 0.21900 drop 13.78 left
8gu 14volts - 50amp - 0.55425 drop 13.45 left
4gu 14volts - 75amp - 0.32850 drop 13.67left
8gu 14volts - 75amp - 0.83137 drop 13.17left
4gu 14volts - 100amp - 0.43800 drop 13.56left
8gu 14volts - 100amp - 1.10850 drop 12.89left
4gu 14volts - 125amp - 0.54750 drop 13.45left
8gu 14volts - 125amp - 1.38562 drop 12.61left

I would a stopped using the 8 gu back around 50 amps
or so, but you see even at 100 amps there is only 1 volt
of current drop, and on music that would only be on the
big bass hits where lots of current flows, not ALWAYS,
so you can see the way we usually build systems is way
overbuilt.... (usually)

I hope you also see how the current dictates the current
drop, as the resistance of the wire and the starting voltage
did not change....

And still the voltage drop with the smallest wire and the
biggest draw is still probably not a problem for most folks,
and the way most cars are overbuilt, the 125 amps on
8 gu is unlikley to be seen..... ;-)


This is at 70 degress F most likely... wire gets derated substaintially
with heat....

substancially my ass!
it takes lots of heat to change it BARELY!!

next time youre blasting your rap check and see what the
temperature of the wire is... you shouldnt be surprized to find out that
youre loosing .5 - 1V pretty easily

Whoever gave you your electric train liscense (EE degree) should
be drummed outa the college... He let you miss too many days and
still passed you....

You said Caps are junk?

I said caps are JEWELRY!
Wear em if you like, they cost alot....

Anyway before you try to make me look like an idiot do some research

you made yourself look like an idiot....
YOU should do some research.....


TOOT TOOT!!!!

Eddie Runner
http://www.installer.com/tech/

whatt how can a fuse be over rated? its a 30 amp automotive fuse, not
even made by pyramid. i bought it at autozone. and also somone was
talking about my watts per dollar discussion and how people look for
other factors suckh as reliability and looks. well so far ive used the
hell out of this thing for over a year, and i have yet to have any
proplems with it. it works great. ad as far as looks it looks pretty
cool. here is a link of what it looks like.
http://www.etronics.com/product.asp?...ore=&catid=308



Kevin McMurtrie wrote in message ...
You just explained in great detail why people hate Pyramid. They lie
out their asses about their product specifications.

So your fuse allows for your "1000W" amp to put out up to 200W. How do
you know that the fuse isn't over rated too? Real 200W RMS amps are a
dime a dozen. There's nothing hard about making one. I even built a
180W RMS car amp from scratch while I was in High School.