today while driving i noticed that at each peak of bass my volt meter would drop i didnt used to have this problem. but since switching to a larger amp i am. anyways, your guys thoughts what would be better a capacitor or a optima red top battery?

def. a capacitor... the red top wouldnt do what your wanting it to.

Hey i have read somewhere that if you up your size of ground wires it will help also. But not sure if it will help this.

id go with a capaciter, but an optima battery wouldnt be bad either, id get a yellow top though, thats the deep cycle one.

ditto. I had this problem when i was running under drive pulleys. the capacitor fixed it completely. a word of caution. when you get the capacitor, be sure to un hook it as well when you do any work that requires unhooking the battery. I have first hand knowledge that the capacitor can put you on your a$$ just as good as a battery can.

a capacitor only stores voltage for deep power draws then needs to recharge , it will only stop your lights from flickering or voltage to drop for the first big sub hit , then it will need to recharge it self so it will not solve youre voltage issue .. if your just running it off the battery under the hood make sure that the grounds on the battery are the same awg wire or greater than the power cable ran to the amp example : running 4 awg power cable from battery to amp and grounding amp with 4 awg but only having a coupl 8 awg battery grounds is like running 8 awg wire to the amp.. make sure all grounds in vehicle are the same awg as power supply.. also a red top will not help it is designed for deep draw startingit has a high CCA rating but not amps/hours.. the only real solution to the problem is to upgrade to a higher amp output alternator and add batterys to the system.. a battery is the biggest capacitor in the vehicl eafter all.. hop ethis helps and doesnt confuse lol

Bigger alternator, and dual batt.

im thinkin of trying a larger alternator and maybe a capacitor. it only gets bad when im stopped and its continually hitting that it drops to about 9-11volts.

but if i choose a dual battery. how do you wire it in to be recharged?

ok well do you think a 140 amp alternator would boost enough juice? a 200 seems like a lil bit of overkill, but then again i dont know what the stock alternator is putting out either.

200 will be a bit of overkill, but then you will not have to worry about it, as it will only charge what you need. Also you can then put some underdrive pullies on other accessories.

Yep the bigger the better , like smoke says you can always add more and it cannot not harm the vehicle to have too big of an alt for the truck will only draw what it needs , it wont always put out 200 amps its just capable of supplying a 200 amp draw.. also with the bigger alt dont forget to upgrade all of youre grounds to a bigger awg wire like 4 or 2 ..you can still use the cap but they are nearly pointless unless competeing in sounds compititions with 200 farad caps..

no competetions for me i just like to have bass in my stereo :D.... and trying to get it to all run right with no hitches. i had nearly the same setup on my old 92 rado but it didnt have a voltage drop like this one is. i have noticed the drop get not as bad now tho.

Bigger wire will help some. It will allow more voltage flow consistantly. A cap does prevent you from having the huge drop in votage because it is storing the votage just like a battery. But it will not stop you from having a huge draw either. I'm running two amps in my truck and sitting at a stop light and jamming pretty good the volt meter will drop to 9 with no problem. A lot of it will also have to do with what kind of amps your running. If its a rockford it's gonna draw a ton of power cause they're built to run on 14.4 volts consistantly.

ok that explains it right there. my old amp was a memphis and i had bigger amp cables and never noticed the draw. but i replaced it with a rockford amp and now i see the draw. like i said before its gotten better when moving it stays at about 13-14 now. and drops to about 10-12 at a stop depending on how much its cranked. didnt realize the rockfords put out so much better then most others till now :D