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You'd be far better off to get an alternator with higher output capabilities. Theoretically (at least this is what the marketing says, and I have an article in a car stereo mag somewhere that's similar), the electrical system isn't up to supplying amperage for sudden power peaks, such as a hard bass hit, and a capacitor is. The gotcha is, many good amps have tightly regulated power supplies, with lots of capacitance built in already, that perform the same task (trying to keep the input voltage from sagging). The more tightly regulated your amp's power supply is, the less useful an external capacitor will be.
Finally, a capacitor will do no good if you exceed the output capabilities of your alternator. I'm curious as to the input fuse rating of that JBL 1200 amp. Amps are generally in the 50% up to maybe 85% efficiency, meaning you have 50 to 85 % of the power going out, as you have going in. Now assuming your 1200w is RMS power, and giving JBL the benefit of the doubt and saying it's 85% efficient, means at maximum continuous output, you'll have an input power of 1412 watts. Figuring for an input voltage of 13.5V, that works out to 105 amps! This is obviously far exceeding the 80 amp Saab alternator, and subtracting the loads from the other electrical devices such as headlights, fans, ECUs, etc, is probably going to be asking too much for the 120 amp alternator, also.
Of course, nobody drives around with their 1200+ watt stereo on full blast unless they don't care about going deaf (or are wearing three sets of hearing protectors), but anyhoo..
Enough rambling for now..
Aaron Gilbert
1987 9000T 268k miles
posted by 206.191.139.1...
, Fri, 14 Dec 2001 19:26:40
, Fri, 14 Dec 2001 11:59:05
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