Adding amplifiers to your vehicle will put an additional burden on your vehicle's electrical system. This may result in dimming dashboard or headlights especially when extremely loud bass notes "hit". This extra burden can also affect the performance of your system which can be noticed in excessive overheating and shutting down of the amplifiers in the system. Often times adding a capacitor or battery is the quick solution to the problem but it may not be the best solution. For example, a 2000W RMS amplifier will potentially draw up to 240 amps of current depending on the design and efficiency of the amplifier. Even though the normal operation of the amp will probably run less than that on average, even half of that, 120 amps, is more than most vehicle electrical systems supply to run the entire vehicle. Most stock electrical systems use alternators that are between 60 and 120 amps. Even if you add capacitors or batteries your stock alternator will still limit the amount of current that can be sent to the batteries and caps. Although upgrading your alternator may be more expensive, in the long run your system and vehicle's electrical system will perform much better than just adding a capacitor or battery.

Consult your local specialist installer or call 1-800-CALL-MTX for advice on current draw from your amplifier to see what would work best for your system.

In some vehicles, the wire size used by the factory between the alternator and the battery is calculated to limit the amount of current that can be drawn from the alternator. This can protect the alternator from excessive draw due to a bad cell in a battery or multiple batteries in the circuit. Upgrading the ground wire is a good practice but you should only upgrade the wire between the alternator and battery if the alternator is upgraded to a high output unit. If you are using a factory alternator, it may be best to assure that the factory wire is in good condition and then leave it alone to so as to avoid damaging the alternator.

Capacitors and batteries are often added to audio systems in order to help overcome vehicle electrical system shortcomings.

Capacitor - A capacitor in a system is designed to help an amplifier to compensate for transient current peaks, it is not a power supply.

Battery - A battery in a system is designed to allow extended play time when the engine is not running.  A battery will be an additional load on the charging system.

Alternator - Your vehicle's alternator supplies the actual current to the vehicle's batteries and consequently the sound system. 

A monoblock amplifier is a 1 channel amp (mono literally means 1). Since bass is omnidirectional, meaning you can tell where it's coming from, it isn't necessary to run subwoofers in stereo. you may see 2 sets of speaker teminals on monoblock amps and they will be labeled as either speaker 1 and speaker 2 terminals, or simply + + and - -. that is because the two + terminals are connected to each other inside the amp, as are the two - terminals. The second set is there simply to make it easier to connect multiple speakers to the amplifier. Do not confuse the two sets of terminals as separate channels. if you're not sure whether an amp is a mono or two channel amp, you can look at the labels above the speaker terminals. a multichannel amplifier will have the separate channels labeled as Left and Right, or L and R.

An amplifier's Class refers to the amplifier's output stage. Although a Class D amplifier can also be a digital amp, the "D" does not stand for digital. What "Class D" does signify is that certain parts of this amplifier turn On/Off to create a signal instead of constantly varing the voltage or current. Changing how long these parts are On or Off changes what you hear. Class A and Class A/B amplifiers are always "On" to some extent, being more or less On as the audio being amplified calls for. The benefit of Class D topology is that current only flows when the parts are On, meaning they run cooler and are more efficient. The problem is that the switching creates distortion, so a low pass filter must be used to counter the distortion produced, because of certain characteristics of the parts used in this circuit, it is much easier to adapt Class D technology for low frequency (subwoofers) applications than for full range speakers. See the Technology section to learn more about MTX Patented Adaptive Class D Technology and its added benefits.