On the weekend my Jaycar 1 farad cap decided it would play up, 13.8v going into the cap but only 10.2v coming back out so my subwoofer amp wouldnt work. I went out and scored and Aeropro 2 farad cap and installed it yesterday but now nothing sounds quite right...... and not just the subs, but the whole system seems to distorting at a lower volume that it did before. All the amps and head unit are still on the same settings and levels as before but it just doesnt seem to sound as good as it did prior. Anyone got any suggestions on this? As far as i can tell the cap shouldnt have any effect on the sound quality what so ever, and especialy when going from a cheap ass $100 cap to a $400 cap.

Have you tried running your system WITHOUT the caps? To check if your amp was damaged..

Have you tried running your system WITHOUT the caps? To check if your amp was damaged..

havent had a chance yet, finished installing it late yesterday so the first really good listen was on the way to work this morning. Thought id try and get a few ideas first before ripping the boot apart again!

The jaycar cap is a self charging design, very bad idea. The old school caps were just that - you needed to charge them up with a lightbulb in series otherwise you blew a fuse when you connected power. The new style use a charging circuit to limit the inrush current. Cute idea, but very difficult to implement in practice. The charging resistor needs to be shorted once the voltage in the cap is the same as the supply voltage. You either do this with a MOSFET or relay, both can go bad.

Depending on how intelligent the designer was, there is a possiblilty that someone may have done something stupid with the charging circuit and you are trying to run the amp via the charging resistor.

Either that or you wired the cap in series (I hope not) with the amp.

Caps are a bandaid for an inadequate electrical system - either your cables, battery or alternator are too small if you need one. Waste of money. I know in the car audio fraternity their use is encouraged, but this is by people who have a vested interest (ie. they sell them).

Cheers
Heath Young

Heath is correct. Caps are frowned upon allot in the CAA/MEA community, due to the fact they are essentially patches for poor installs.

Replace the +ve lead from your battery to the amp. Buy a multimeter and find a good ground for the amp and upgrade that wire too. See if you have a problem after that.

jees spending $500 on caps... wouldve bought u a very good battery and leads, with cash to spare...

but then u wouldnt have the boot bling :doubt: :gtfo:

jees spending $500 on caps... wouldve bought u a very good battery and leads, with cash to spare...

but then u wouldnt have the boot bling :doubt: :gtfo:

hehe i like my boot bling lol

Ok, on further inspection of the system i am guessing that whatever caused the cap to cark it in the first place has also stuffed one of my speakers which would explain why its distorting. on low volume the speaker sounds fine, its when you push it you can rear the problem. Cant really explain what happened though because no fuses in the wiring system have popped? I guess its just one of those things hey. I think the next mission will be a) a new set of splits b) rewire the system with larger guage wiring and better ditribution blocks etc.....

take the cap out then back over it 1 or 50 times then chuck it in the bin, that should fix the problem :P

ps- i think caps are useless and a huge waste of money just for the record :D

from what your saying, theres a good chance that the speaker may be fine. if the cap, or some other part of the electrical system, is giving the amps a dirty signal, it could very well cause the amp to distort badly.

Also if its a D class amp for your speakers, when it was giving out such a low voltage, it may have even blown a channel. i'd really recommend removing the cap before you do more damage