To bring some light into this discussion:

The working principle of a capacitor is its ability to charge and discharge extremly quick. The reason for that is the extremely low internal resistance.
Good batteries also have a very low internal resistance. It is in fact close to a electric short. For this reason good batteries are able to deliver an enormous amount of current for starting purposes.
An old batterie has a higher internal resistance, this leads to lower amperage during starting- resulting in that feeling for a bad batterie.

In fact capacitors are a good choice to deliver current in high power applications.

BUT they will not help if an audiosystem has already weaaknesses in current storage or supply. In fact they will cover up a bad battery for a while. Thats it. The need for battery replacement still exists.
Dimming headlights and varying rpms are an indicator for a badly worn out electrical supply.

 

new battery with new alternator. Did the same thing. Why? Cause ther person was drawing more power than the entire system could provide alone. If you have an 85 amp alternator, with 2 1000 watt amplifiers or 1 2000 watt amplifier and you have the system cranked 75% of what it is capable of, when the bass hits and draws 120 plus amps from the battery and alternator alone, your lights will dim....with 1 900 amp hour battery and an 85 amp alternator with the vehicle running... THis is not good on the entire electrical system. Therefore, how can you help it? By either adding a high output alternator, a couple more batteries, or a 1 farad capacitor that is made for high power audio systems. They charge slowly so that they wont draw excessive current from the alternator and over work it, yet the have the ability to discharge rapidly when the system calls for it, such as when the base hits so it doesn't keep the alternator fluctuating its output. That decreases the life of the alternator. anything over 900 watts of audio power and I am putting a cap in. Never had a problem in 20 years, and wont . Just my .02

 

Capacitor recharge is extremely quickly!:

Tau= R x C

usually they slowed down during first start to prevent excess current flow while start.

Do not forget the demand of current of the truck,e.g.: Fuel lift pump, ECM, PCM- these units draw a bunch of power. Add this to your current consumption and your alternator is maxed out very quickly.

I'm always surprised to see someone whopping in a big battery and still keeping the nearly stock alternator. 85 amps? Thats pretty nothing. Common cars nowdays play in the 130 up to 200 amp league. So after installing a bigger battery the second thing is a bigger alternator, followed by cables to decrease losses.
- Alternator
- Battery
- Cables
Follow the ABC to avoid problems.

 

Hmm good info thanks for the input guys. I got finished up last night running the wiring and what not. I started the truck. The truck is started up and running even before the amp turns on. The head unit delays it for about 10 seconds before kicking it on so I think I'm fine with the draw on startup. I hit the a/c, lights, wipers, anything I could turn on electrically and then cranked up the bass and I couldn't stand it and the gauge didn't even move.

I don't know if this was because of the new batteries I had installed, I did cut out the old battery terminals and replaced them with better - they were a little green but nothing bad. I had dreaded doing this because sometimes that green goes farther down the cable then anticipated leading to a new cable. But there was no dimming a/c kicked on as normal so hopefully I'm good to go. I'll have to do more research on that cap...maybe ask my dad about it he's an electrical engineer. See if he has any ideas.

Back to the subject, so in fine tuning the system can anyone tell me what you run for MHz when you tune? I still have the stock speakers and tweets but new ones are almost on the way I can control everything (this deck is amazing) from the MHz to each speaker to the Mhz it sends to the front or rear or subs or tweets. Right now it sounds like *** I won't lie... and I already lost the manual

65+ pages to print one off...

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One other thing does anyone know what the size speakers are in my truck? I've heard a couple of different things and I'd kind of like to have the speakers and tweets all ready to go when I tear into it...

CHEMMINS: Thanks man I've heard nothing but good things from Audio Technix. Got my first role commin

 

No prob on the AT. I have used a couple rolls of the 80 mil in my own truck, and need to order another roll actually. Way cheaper than Dynamat, proven better quality and test results as well.