Do I have enough power? How to tell.

So I'm good to support 1600w rms but not 3200? And the xs battery I get would replace my stock, not be a second.
yes, basically....... as in you can feed a 1600watt amp, not necissarily support 1600watts. best thing would be to wire the subs so the amp puts out that much for best efficiency. it's a big voltage drop game..... as your amperage increases, your voltage drops, accordingly.... first stage is what your alternator can put out (and the rpm you need to get that output), then the amperage your battery (storage device only) supplies the extra power to it's capacity and then voltage drops even more (amps/time) power from your amp increases or decreases at an alrming rate compared to what volatage you can feed it...... just as an example, not actual numbers....: say you are at 11v, you are pulling 300amps+, but only getting 50%efficiency...... you will never see even close to 2k output at that level...... but say you are pulling a flat 300 amps at 16v. you might get 85% efficiency, since the higher the voltage, the more efficiency you get from the amp, so you could see 3800. being limited to 160a, i see no reason outside of competing to realistically set up based on anything but your alternators output. often, you will only get about 100-115a unless you rev it up. if you want to compete, and not do a 16v conversion, you are looking at 12v ratings..(something like 11.4-11.8 burps/runs) and get some runs well under 3k, for which you need a lot of time to recover. daily systems, stick close to what your alternator can put out, or you will find that you kill batteries quite often, and within 2 years you could pay for a custom dual/tripple alt setup with the money you put in fried batteries.

 
your zues amp does 1500 actual watts at best, dont worry you will be fine with the alt and a battery up to 2.5k total (including 4 channel amp wattage)
i just looked it up...... it should be able to do 3200rms, given you can support the voltage..... and, no, you cannot actually maintain 2.5k on 160amps unless you somehow have a 165% efficiency amp or better...... last i checked.... the best you can get is half that...... and i work on amps.

 
Get burned by Ebay alts along with knowing a lot of people that got burned by off brands and you'll understand the hate. At least these reputable brands back their alts. With ebay, you fked because you are just gonna get another replacement POS that does the same sh*tty idle or just eat the restocking and shipping fee. Trust me man, you venture outside of reputable companies, you are in for a world of butthurt.
i understand.... The ONLY ebay alt i would consider is PowerMax USA, but they have their own site also. because i have a few friends that have them and they have ran them for a few years. They tested them and they did just shy of rated amperage. Like a buddy has one thats rated 200a @ 1400rpm, and it tested out at 183, im not sure about idle amperage. He paid $172 and has been running it going on 2 years. again i have a couple of other friends also. But the others id probably stay away from

 
i just looked it up...... it should be able to do 3200rms, given you can support the voltage..... and, no, you cannot actually maintain 2.5k on 160amps unless you somehow have a 165% efficiency amp or better...... last i checked.... the best you can get is half that...... and i work on amps.
One word, box rise. I'm not talking about AFTER box rise, its before, He'll never EVER reach the current draws you are insinuating in a real world setting playing music which has even less current draw then most people can ever imagine. Do a few clamp tests with impedance graphs at various frequencies and you'll see that you arent even getting anywhere close to half of your amp's rated power after rise which gives you less than half of the rated amperage draw.

That amp does not get anywhere near rated. False fuse ratings, overly bloated specs, horrible cheap chinese underbuilt board. Anyone thats ever used a Zues amp knows how junky they are compared to legit amps or even their brutus counterparts.

 
there are a few gems out there, i'm sure..... but there is also allot of garbage that either won't do near what is claimed, or will soon just fail because of some cheap shortcut or skimp that saved them .2cents on manufacturing....... but if 8/10 work, they are still making money.
understood. The only one i would consider would powermax usa becasue i have seen a few in action and tested. i have a few buddys that have ran them for a couple of years

 
look at it this way: you have a 50# draw juvinile bow. you take an 18oz arrow and pull it back to 85-100lb you can draw. the only thing you get by drawing it back like that is like you might as well be hucking a bean bag or pocket knife........ now, you take a 9oz arrow and pull it to 50# and you are 10x as effective..... you are the amp, the bow is your poer supply and the arrow is your impeedance.....

 
One word, box rise. I'm not talking about AFTER box rise, its before, He'll never EVER reach the current draws you are insinuating in a real world setting playing music which has even less current draw then most people can ever imagine.
That amp does not get anywhere near rated. False fuse ratings, overly bloated specs, horrible cheap chinese underbuilt board. Anyone thats ever used a Zues amp knows how junky they are compared to legit amps or even their brutus counterparts.
that's 2 words..... and box rise is at rf, not across the curve, and only a narrow band in the response. there is also the opposite, where you want to hear some deep notes and it is going to draw much more than at re.

 
i just looked it up...... it should be able to do 3200rms, given you can support the voltage..... and, no, you cannot actually maintain 2.5k on 160amps unless you somehow have a 165% efficiency amp or better...... last i checked.... the best you can get is half that...... and i work on amps.
So to clarify; you're saying that my amp (sub at one ohm rated 3200) only truly pushes about 1500ishwatts because of the voltage restrictions and the amp efficiency correct? And of course I understand all of these numbers are relative and not exact.

 
understood. The only one i would consider would powermax usa becasue i have seen a few in action and tested. i have a few buddys that have ran them for a couple of years
unbeliveable as it is, i've seen "upgrades" that are nothing more than a different set of diodes....... i **** you not, these people stand behind them making more power...... even though the diode trios are a passive device and you need to rewind the stator or commutator to actually generate said power....... they still think a $3 part is making all that free power the government doesnt want you to know about..... and ailiens, and unicorn farts and ****...... but that aside.... i'm all for american manufacturing if people can attest to them.... when i had disposable income, i would be up to buying one and tearing it down to evaluate the quality...... but i guess, let us know how it goes after a while.

 
So to clarify; you're saying that my amp (sub at one ohm rated 3200) only truly pushes about 1500ishwatts because of the voltage restrictions and the amp efficiency correct? And of course I understand all of these numbers are relative and not exact.
i did not say that. if you have it set up for 1 ohm, you could pull over 2k..... it may not be pretty and you need to recover your battery when you do that (30min, minimum recharging).... the other guy said that. i'm saying you could drive around and play 1600rms+ and be much happier and sound better than basically overloading your system every time you crank it up and straining not ony your car, but your amp. i know these amps a bit (i repair and upgrade them, among others) and the ratings are fairly honest. so, no, you won't get jyped to 1500rms if you have it at 1 ohm..... but at 160a, it's going to work like hell and cook like hell and sound like hell compared to if you can run it at 2 ohms on your system.

 
that's 2 words..... and box rise is at rf, not across the curve, and only a narrow band in the response. there is also the opposite, where you want to hear some deep notes and it is going to draw much more than at re.
Havent slept the whole night... There's more current draw at lower notes and you generally have your lowest rise at the lower notes if you ever clamp test and graph out your frequency response.

AKA my DC audio 3.5k amp. Lowest rise was at 2.4 ohms, only did 1750 ish rms. while 47hz(my loudest frequency) only had 800 watts rising to 5 ohms. Actual amp draw is very low. You also did not even bother accounting in for what batteries can do for your system as well, its not the alt feeding straight into the amp. You have people running much more wattage and current draw on much less than adequate electricals with success.

Hell my buddy just competed on a stock 130(maybe less) amp alt, 6k inefficient and power hungry amp and 20 amp hour lithium juicebox battery, didnt drop below 12 volts got 3rd place in a crowded league basically against walls/semi walled cars with unlimted cone area restrictions while he was a non wall box with two 15s thats barely above the window line. He was also good to do plenty of short demos for others before and afterwards without blowing or overheating anything.

Must be doing something wrong since by your logic he can only support 1300 watts.

 
Havent slept the whole night... There's more current draw at lower notes and you generally have your lowest rise at the lower notes if you ever clamp test and graph out your frequency response.
AKA my DC audio 3.5k amp. Lowest rise was at 2.4 ohms, only did 1750 ish rms. while 47hz(my loudest frequency) only had 800 watts rising to 5 ohms. Actual amp draw is very low. You also did not even bother accounting in for what batteries can do for your system as well, its not the alt feeding straight into the amp. You have people running much more wattage and current draw on much less than adequate electricals with success.

Hell my buddy just competed on a stock 130(maybe less) amp alt, 6k inefficient and power hungry amp and 20 amp hour lithium juicebox battery, didnt drop below 12 volts got 3rd place in a crowded league basically against walls/semi walled cars with unlimted cone area restrictions while he was a non wall box with two 15s thats barely above the window line. He was also good to do plenty of short demos for others before and afterwards without blowing or overheating anything.

Must be doing something wrong since by your logic he can only support 1300 watts.
if i had a dollar for every "my buddy" stories....... for one, LITHIUM...... liion, or lipo, they put out bursts like nobodies business. 20ah can convert into 300h/xmin @ x voltage..... there's a reason it's called a "jucebox" i notice how you neglected to mention the 16 hours of recharge he had to do to recover that 20 second run.

YOUR box rise only relates to YOUR box, and not to be confused with typical..... i noticed you eluded the inversion i mentioned...... some of us like to listen to the music, not play notes and songs within a specific range.... and yes, that does include dropping below the fs of the enclosure...... and i'm just going to let you figure out what happens to impedance there. topology is not measured by certain notes, its gauged by overall posible playable range.

apparently, you have no real concept of voltage drop and exactly how crutial it is to power availability in the front of an amp....... if only there was some sort of literature or foresight in the past 20 years that followed this sort of thinking...... just think, people would be doing 16v conversions.... if manufacturers (.... cough, cough... mid-90's orion) had built such devices.... if only people had known (cough, cough, manufacturers)..... but no, we live in a world where 500watts going into a burp box with 3 batteries is the same thing as 2500 watts going into a well built box with a good alternator....... but the previos is better somehow.....

 
Right.... didnt you read? He didnt need to charge, was demoing easily for days. There's also a thing called a proper subsonic filter, takes out the issues that you face with playing below tuning. Music as also dynamic as well, you arent going to draw max current at any given moment unless you are playing -1 to 0db levels of boosted music... Most music falls in the -5 db range and that lowers your amplifier's output as well. You overly estimate your actual real world current draw unless you are clipping which makes your efficiency plummet and current draw go through the roof.

 
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