I agree with newbsauce, just take the battery up to advance auto parts, they test them for free. And take a voltmeter to make sure your alternator is putting out good voltage, should be between 13.4 and 14.4 volts normally.

 

Not only will your current battery charge make a difference, but the wiring of your audio setup as well. Different wiring techniques put different amount of resistance on your amp. Which in turn, your amp will draw more power to meet your subs demands...

 

I'm going to leave that one alone. I'm trying to resist my impulses.

 

If u can swing it I would suggest a odyssey instead of an optima ... have had better luck with them. Also if u haven't done so yet redo your grounds with lower gauge cable, you will be surprised how much a difference it will make.

 

Def. the battery, no question about it But also it could be the alternator going, if the alternator isn't generating the right amount of power for the battery to charge back up then your batter drains like crazy. But no need for an Optima, unless you plan on getting two more 600w amps. I'm pushin' 3000watts on 2 12''s in my integra on a stock battery and alternator.. only problem i have is driving at night, the lights dim when the bass hits and i can't see shit! lol.. just get a charging system diagnostic.. think they're anywhere from $10 to $20. good luck.

 

If you had a better battery you wouldn't have as much of a problem with dimming. And you're not actually putting out 3000 watts, that's just the rating of the amp, and is fairly meaningless except for comparing it to other amps. If you were actually putting out 3000 watts, you wouldn't be using the stock alternator and battery, because that would be around 200 amps at 13.8 volts, plus the power supply and output stage efficiency losses, so figure about 250 amps. You're not supporting that with a stock alternator, sorry.

 

You're right it's def. never continuously 3000 watts and the amp is only 1693 watts rms, but i'm def. on stock alternator and battery... with 4 gauge wiring, and a 250A circuit breaker.

 

afaik, this is the situation when a capacitor might help...it will store the charge so that when your amp requires more juice, it steals it from the capacitor instead of the rest of your electrical system.

so capacitor should help with the lights dimming...you'll have to get a pretty large one if you're pushing that much power out of your amp, tho.

 

Yeah i'm aware of that, this thread isn't about my problem though. And i'm about to get rid of my system anyways, too heavy.

 

Ah, now the truth comes out. Peak power means nothing, but RMS power (actually RMS power doesn't really exist, its a horrible marketing term) doesn't mean a hell of a lot either. So you have a 1700 watt (average, continuous) amp, which is more believable.

What is usually called RMS power (which doesn't exist, did I mention that?) is actually the average power that can be output over a continuous time. Average power is RMS voltage x RMS current into a resistive load. Anyway, this doesn't really say anything about what an amp puts out, because speakers aren't a resistive load (4 ohms means nothing when it's actually moving). This isn't an attack on you, it's more of an attack on misinformation spread by marketing departments. You've just drank their cool aid.