cap cracked, still good?

[Fr0sty51 10+ year member]

True, an alternator upgrade is the much better fix, but for those who want a quick fix then they go with a cap. I've just seen people with 2 15" L7's and a 1 FARAD cap and im like, wtf, of course its not gonna do shit, its gonna drain quick as hell.

Im gonna quote what the best accessory brand (Stinger) says about capacitors so don't take it up with me take it up with them. This came straight from one of their guides.

"Power capacitors provide an unprecedented increase in system performance by acting as a high energy power reservoir. Stinger's power caps provide your amplifiers with clean transient power as they hit peak output when the bass pumping & the music is jamming. Why should you choose Stinger's power capacitors? Because only Stinger has the cutting edge designs that consistently with the Autosound Grand Prix Awards." ........quote, unquote

This proves that they obviously show some sort of significance in your system if they are able to win awards and such and such. If they don't do anything....why would they be winning awards?

IM NOT SAYING that capacitors are the best way to go, because a high performance battery and alternator are the ways to go. All im saying that a capacitor is used for a quick fix, but you need a cap that fits your system, if its to small of course it wont do a **** thing.

 

[allyourblood 10+ year member]

"Power capacitors provide an unprecedented increase in system performance by acting as a high energy power reservoir. Stinger's power caps provide your amplifiers with clean transient power as they hit peak output when the bass pumping & the music is jamming. Why should you choose Stinger's power capacitors? Because only Stinger has the cutting edge designs that consistently with the Autosound Grand Prix Awards." ........quote, unquote
This proves that they obviously show some sort of significance in your system if they are able to win awards and such and such. If they don't do anything....why would they be winning awards?

"The Autosound Grand Prix Awards are VOTED BY RETAILERS for sound/video fidelity, design engineering, reliability, installation-friendliness, user and installer friendliness, product integrity, and value for price and performance. Stinger and Peripheral accept the awards for these new products with great pride."

http://www.aampofamerica.com/press/aamp/02/grand_prix_awards_030102.asp

that's why. guess what? retailers aren't manufacturers, or enthusiasts, or competitors. they're resellers, and they base their awards on what they feel will SELL THE BEST. that award isn't worth the toilet paper it's scrawled on.

abe m.

 

[zane 10+ year member]

Let's not forget RC's cap test.

http://www.welcometotheden.8k.com/caraudio/Captest.pdf

I can't recall how many times I have heard him (RC-One of the main innovator's of cap's) state that they offer little to no difference to a system.

Its funny how all MECP certified installers tell me that they do help your bass response, and its funny how our local competitor has 3 18" solo x's and uses giant Stinger capacitors, just because you cant afford things like that doesnt give you the reason to rip on them.

FrOsty51- it's quite funny that you are apparently sucked in by the vacuum of "what the industry says is gospel." It is also quite funny, and certainly unappropriate, that you assume my financial status without fact or direct knowledge. Thus, we may now interpret that all statements forthcomming from you also share the same commonality.

 

[Fr0sty51 10+ year member]

zane- it's quite funny that you are apparently sucked in by your own ignorance.

From what your saying if a JL W7 handles up to 500 watts, you believe its false because that is what the industry tells you......AND OBVIOUSLY IF ITS THE INDUSTRY IT MUST BE FALSE IN YOUR CASE!!!!! **** I WOULD HATE TO BUY ANYTHING FROM YOU OR GET ADVICE FROM YOU BECAUSE EITHER I WOULD BE UNDERPOWERING EVERYTHING, OR OVERPOWERING IT.

It is also quite funny, and certainly unappropriate, that you assume a capacitor does nothing......just because the industry says it does. (And i personally trust the best accessory company of over 20 years, then you, or from someone else)

I FIND IT HILARIOUS THAT WHEN I USE A CAPACITOR, MY VOLTAGE READS CONSIDERABLY HIGHER FROM THE CHARTS YOU SHOW ME, OH MY GOD...........THAT CAN'T BE RIGHT, THERE MUST BE SOMTHING WRONG WITH IT THEN IF IT DOES WHAT IT IS SUPPOSE TO. SHIT I MADE A MISTAKE, IT WASNT SUPPOSE TO HELP MY SYSTEM, LOOKS LIKE IM GONNA HAVE TO SELL IT.......................

Your so ignorant and i personally find it very offensive and unwelcoming that you post any of your knowledge to anyone. Like i said before anyone who listens to you is obviously going to underpower or over power anything they have just because you have a stick up your *** about what the industry tells you, (Who buy the way are the designers and creators of all car audio such and such that you have in your trunk, door panels, etc.) And I will personally believe the industry, the ones who make the stuff, and I will believe a reputable company (Stinger)

 

[zane 10+ year member]

zane- it's quite funny that you are apparently sucked in by your own ignorance.
From what your saying if a JL W7 handles up to 500 watts, you believe its false because that is what the industry tells you......AND OBVIOUSLY IF ITS THE INDUSTRY IT MUST BE FALSE IN YOUR CASE!!!!! **** I WOULD HATE TO BUY ANYTHING FROM YOU OR GET ADVICE FROM YOU BECAUSE EITHER I WOULD BE UNDERPOWERING EVERYTHING, OR OVERPOWERING IT.

I stand correct in my previous statement. Thank you for sharing your non-factual, and unknowledgeable view point.

My own ignorance ehh? Might want to re-think that one bucko.

Last I checked there is still not a power standard regulating amplifiers that requires them to produce the exact number of watts they state they do.

I have a JBL BP1200.1 rated to produce 1200 x 1 @ 2 ohm mono. Guess what, 1326 watts @ 2 ohm mono is what it benched at.

I have a Lanzar Vibe 258 - rated at 1600 x 1 @ 4 ohm mono. Guess what, 922w x 1 @ 4 ohm mono is what it benched at.

I have an Xtant x1001 which is rated at 1000 x 1 @ 2 ohm mono. Guess what, 1847 watts @ 2 ohm mono is what it benched at. - Even more than I anticipated in my previous review of this amp:

http://momentum.soundillusions.net/Feb04/testbench.html

Oddly enough, I am currently pushing an eD 12.o-44 at 2 ohms with this amp. Oops! - Thats well beyond what they recommend!

I'm sure that several others can "chime in" as to their own amps producing "exactly" what they are rated at.

I previously ran 1000 watts to a pair of JL Audio 12w0 -4's at 2 ohm mono, funny that they are only rated for 125w yet had no issues handling the additional 700 sent to them.

Guess that the 4 RF HE2 15's that I pushed at 1 ohm from an old RF Power 50.2 didn't produce the 156.6db in my old SPL setup either, as there wouldn't be enough power per the Power 50.2 is only rated at 50w x 2.

I personally like a statement from Dan Wiggins of Adire Audio for myths relating to this matter:

Rated power of a driver is the required power for the driver... Man I hate that one...  

Dan Wiggins

Adire Audio

http://www.carsound.com/cgi-bin/UBB_CGI/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=022292;p=2

It's called marketing. There are profoundly more people out there in the audio world that are manipulating physics, and overcomming the physical confines of their vehicle by doing nearly the opposite of what the manufacturer recommends. Manufacturer spec's are merely a loose form of guidelines.

I personally like the way Nick (Electrodynamic) from SI has put it:

For those who don't live by a spec sheet.

Then again, everything the industry tells us is true. If they say that a cap works, then it must. If they say a speaker can only handle 50 watts, then that is all it can handle. If they say an amplifier only produces 400 watts, then that is all it can produce. Blindly following everything that is told to us, and not subjecting those theory's or products to testing rather limits the end user on the whole, and may cause people to spend more money than they actually need to.

Without subjective testing to find out for ourselves, we are at a loss, as each company would be assumed correct all of the time.

I think that nature and science have taught us that there are no absolutes.

It is also quite funny, and certainly unappropriate, that you assume a capacitor does nothing......just because the industry says it does. (And i personally trust the best accessory company of over 20 years, then you, or from someone else)

I FIND IT HILARIOUS THAT WHEN I USE A CAPACITOR, MY VOLTAGE READS CONSIDERABLY HIGHER FROM THE CHARTS YOU SHOW ME, OH MY GOD...........THAT CAN'T BE RIGHT, THERE MUST BE SOMTHING WRONG WITH IT THEN IF IT DOES WHAT IT IS SUPPOSE TO. SHIT I MADE A MISTAKE, IT WASNT SUPPOSE TO HELP MY SYSTEM, LOOKS LIKE IM GONNA HAVE TO SELL IT.......................

Unappropriate is making assumptions and statements about anyone's personal life and situations relating to their personal life when you have ZERO grounds to do so.

Funny is that you assume a capacitor does in fact work effectively and efficiently; relying solely on what the industry tells you. Of course Stinger will tell you a cap is great. They make them. They sell them. They make profit from them. They can't very well go around marketing a product effectively by telling people that they don't work exactly as described.

Yes, Stinger is one heck of a company, I use their products myself. However, the description "best accessory company," is subjective and merely opinion. Ixos has been around for a considerable amount of time, and also has recieved several awards for it's products. Not all of it's implementations and design are shared or held in the same value as other companies. Whoever you may trust to be correct, may have an equally popular counterpart with different ideas in which another may trust to be correct. At this point, it just becomes a shouting match of flaring opinion, not much fact.

Hillarious is that you actually believe a capacitor has the physical ability in design to raise voltage. A capacitor is a storage device, not a source device. The capacitor depends completely on the alternator. The alternator and it's regulator solely determine vehicle voltage. A capacitor has nothing to do with it.

I suppose that every automotive electrical reference is incorrect though, and that we need to start adding caps to cars to make them function correctly....

Your so ignorant and i personally find it very offensive and unwelcoming that you post any of your knowledge to anyone. Like i said before anyone who listens to you is obviously going to underpower or over power anything they have just because you have a stick up your *** about what the industry tells you, (Who buy the way are the designers and creators of all car audio such and such that you have in your trunk, door panels, etc.) And I will personally believe the industry, the ones who make the stuff, and I will believe a reputable company (Stinger)

Can't see you proving any of that either..... //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/wink.gif.608e3ea05f1a9f98611af0861652f8fb.gif

 

[allyourblood 10+ year member]

And I will personally believe the industry, the ones who make the stuff, and I will believe a reputable company (Stinger)

keep it up. the industry is more than happy to cater to the suckers out there, who buy product just because they say to. you're just what they're looking for.

abe m.

 

[Fr0sty51 10+ year member]

I'm sorry, I dont listen to any one with Profile amps and Sony speakers in their vehicle LOL!!!!! That's pretty sad.

 

[Berry47 10+ year member]

A Physics or Electrical Circuits class will tell you exactly what zane did. I don't have sony or profile.

THe economy is driven by consumers, industry tells the consumer what to buy through the media, the indusrty pays the media, the consumer buys the product that funds the industry.

Its really a quite simple economic principal... Supply and demand.

If you listened to the indusrty about caps why don't you go buy profile and sony from cc. They are the ones that are suppying the industry you so strongly believe in and they think sony and profile are great.

 

[zane 10+ year member]

I'm sorry, I dont listen to any one with Profile amps and Sony speakers in their vehicle LOL!!!!! That's pretty sad.

Why?

Both companies have a strong history of making quality products at a fairly reasonable price.

I can personally attest, to this with both companies.

Equipment really means very little when you get right down to it. Install and tuning are where the make or break will occur.

Anyone with half a brain and some mechanical aptitude can spend a reasonable amount of time working with their equipment, regardless of brand, and achieve a good result.

 

[allyourblood 10+ year member]

I'm sorry, I dont listen to any one with Profile amps and Sony speakers in their vehicle LOL!!!!! That's pretty sad.

what's sad is how blind you are to the industry's marketing BS. i concede that my Sony equipment is the weak-link in my system -- i'm looking to upgrade them in the future. but as for my Profile amps -- they're great. people on this forum know and respect Profile's equipment, and they perform very well.

you're trying to bait me, and it's not going to work. my equipment as a whole sounds very nice: it produces loud levels of quality sound (despite some of the lower-end components), and it suits my needs quite nicely. it would seem you're making some effort to embarrass me, in regards to my system choices, perhaps in order to cause others to side with you. "yeah, abe's stuff is crap, so why should i listen to him?" i could say the same to you, being that caps are considered unecessary or useless in almost every installation. hell, you drive a Ford SUV, unanimously considered a useless, gas-guzzling, superfluous waste of plastic and glass. seeing as you made such a poor choice in vehicles, why should anyone listen to YOU??

it's become clear that you're not going to listen to reason, or logic, or even facts (yes, facts). that being the case, i figure a good many members of this fourm see you as a troll. your opinions have been invalidated, and you've done very little, actually nothing, to contribute to the betterment of this online community. it simply doesn't seem necessary to rip on someone else's gear in order to get your point across.

abe m.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

A cap will not fix an overtaxxed, inadequate charging system. It will not fix light dimming. It will not make your bass hit harder except maybe for the first note. It merely stores a charge given to it. It will charge to the voltage of the primary source of current (alternator with the car running and battery with it off) and will discharge down to the voltage of the secondary source of current when the primary is tapped out. It is this discharge that makes people think that their lights aren't dimming anymore. They still are, but it is a more gradual dimming rather than the flicker that is evident without the cap and is not readily perceived by the human eye.

Although I generally agree with the conclusion of Clark's "test," the test was BS. It was designed to give the desired results. A 2000W amp and a poor little 80A alt?!? Sounds like a wickedly overtaxed charging system to me. Cranking it for minutes at max power?!? I don't see how that is a realistic look at a real life situation. I would like to see a person that can stand having 2000W played at them in a car for just a few seconds much less a few minutes. I'm sorry that's just not realistic. Clark then used flawed logic to say that since the cap didn't stabilze the voltage in this case, then it couldn't in any other case either. If the charging system can cover the demands of the system, the cap would likely keep the voltage stable during transients until the alt can up the current to match demand (it happens quick but not as quick as the cap can discharge) but the difference would be inaudible. About the only real difference might be your amp running a smidge cooler or you might pull an extra .1 dB.

Richard Clark is very respected in the car audio world (based on what, I'm not totally sure), but I have a problem with his "scientific method" or rather lack there of. Most every demonstration or test he has conducted has been fundamentally flawed. I covered a few of the flaws in his cap test above. His extra battery demo is not even worth reading it's so bad. A person on a bicycle is used to drive an alternator which is then used to charge a battery and run a bunch of lights. The alt is not enough to run the lights alone so the battery is discharging. He adds another battery which is now also discharging and claims that since that the person on the bike (he's tired by now and the RPM is dropping off pretty quickly, but somehow he is still a valid representation of your car engine) can't charge both batteries, then the extra battery is always just more drain on the charging system. Again he proves nothing because there is nothing scientific about his approach. Bad science is worse than no science IMHO. Based on crap like the above, I have serious problems with accepting anything Clark trys to pass off as proven by him as fact at face value.

All that being said, in no case is a cap needed and in fews cases will there be a real benefit to adding one.

 

[Fr0sty51 10+ year member]

Don't worry abe ya *** i plan on telling you what a cap really does 2morrow and makin u look pretty bad. It has some what to do with helotaxis thread.

People should listen to me for #1 These are car audio forums, not vehicle forums dumbass, and #2 People are gonna learn a little something about what a cap does, it is basically everything ive already stated. Because I've done my research now and found out a few "non-industry" guys if you will who have the same thing that Stinger says about their caps......!!!!!!

I'll tell ya all about it 2morrow!!!!!

 

[allyourblood 10+ year member]

sigh... pointless name-calling. i got you with that remark about your car, and all you can do is insult me in rebuttal.

NO ONE should listen to you, because despite any shred of knowledge you might have regarding car audio (if any), you've been belligerent, and disrespectful to people who have done nothing to you, except dent your steel-reinforced ego. i don't know what happens tomorrow, but regardless, you're obviously going to great lengths to "prove" you're "right". others have put the facts before you repeatedly, and you look the other way just because they don't share your point of view.

you said, "These are car audio forums, not vehicle forums dumbass"... hmm... what does "car audio" start with? perhaps the word "car"???? my point was, and is, this:

you said you weren't going to listen to me because my equipment choices were poor. if i hadn't listed them, you wouldn't know, and therefor my opinion might carry some sort of validity for you???

i pointed out that you ride in a rather poor choice of conveyance (your Ford Explorer), because YOU listed them. had you not, should your opinion be any more important to anyone?

no. it's simple. my choice in equipment has nothing to do with my level of knowledge of car audio, and i'd prefer that you didn't imply to the contrary.

the Terms of Service, to which you agreed when you registered with this forum state:

"You will not upload, store or disseminate any Content or make any Communications which violate or infringe the intellectual property or privacy rights of any person or which a reasonable person would consider abusive, profane, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive, which are defamatory or harassing, or which violate or encourage others to violate this Agreement or any applicable law."

so please find another avenue thru which to get your point across, instead of needless name-calling and bashing.

abe m.

 

[helotaxi 5,000+ posts]

Don't worry abe ya *** i plan on telling you what a cap really does 2morrow and makin u look pretty bad. It has some what to do with helotaxis thread.

Oh! Wow! The great purveyor of knowlege is going to share some of his infinite wisdom with us! I feel so privleged, so special, so loved...

People should listen to me for #1 These are car audio forums, not vehicle forums dumbass,

People will listen to you when you show that you 1) can communicate like a mature knowledgeable human being and 2) show that you actually know something about car audio. We're still waiting on both counts...

#2 People are gonna learn a little something about what a cap does, it is basically everything ive already stated. Because I've done my research now and found out a few "non-industry" guys if you will who have the same thing that Stinger says about their caps

You have nothing to teach me about caps. I know how they work and the theory behind their use in a car audio system. They will not make an audible difference in a system, so they have no place in a SQ install. There are better ways to get max power to an amp than a cap in really high power installs so they rarely have a place in SPL installs. If you really knew as much as you think you know, then you would be laughing at your claims. This should be good...

 

[brandontw 10+ year member]

I'm sorry, I dont listen to any one with Profile amps and Sony speakers in their vehicle LOL!!!!! That's pretty sad.

You are obviosly an ignorant fool with more money than brains.

My freind has sony amps and sony 12's because he is poor like me and thay are goo for the price cosidering he paid a fraction of what you paid for your system if you got a good deal on yours. Im assuming that scince money is not an object for you, you went to you local retailer, paid full price + markup and had someone install it for you. so he paid probably a 20th as much as you for his system, and i doubt that your system sounds 20 times better than his. so it seams that he is the smart one.

As for profile amps, I own oone and it works great, kicks out 900 rms at 4 ohms, nothing less, nothing more, and if you use it knowing this, it will work as good as any high dollar amp, and if you do a little system planning and find out that thats what you need then you just saved a bundle of money.

Congratulations on your obscenely expensive, Right out of the box, bought by your mommy system, you sir, have been suckered by the infamous us marketing system.

I consider you shut down.