does the gauge of wire matter

[bangin out]

I have a 100o watt amp running off a 8 gauge wire. my buddy has a 2400 watt amp that has a 8 gauge wire does it sound better or worse with thicker wire?

[Stocker]

at 1 watt, which is louder than you think, it will sound about the same. If you turn it up to eleven, your car might burn down with that sort of power through fine wires in the wrong places...

...sounds worse, to me.

[DoomPixie]

form experience i will also say that i have found the turn on and off "thumps" if yoru running a sub from the amp are worse the smaller the gauge the wire is.. not really sure why but they dissapeared when i upgraded to 4Gauge in my first install.. i never use anythign thinner than 4 gauge now.. my current setup is useing 4 gauge power cable and 10 gauge speaker cable for the sub and it is only useign a 300W RMS amp..
Owen

[bangin out]

Thanks!


my friend has a 2400 watt pyle he has 8 gauge wire. His amp wont turn on or anything. The protect lite does not turn on, nothing turns on it worked at one time but now is just dead.



Ps: the amp is new

Thanks again

[DoomPixie]

Has your friend checked the fuse? there should be a fuse on the amp itself (or more likley 2 fuses) and ther eis a fuse ( or atleast i hope there is) in the power feed close too the battery. I would still recomend atleast 4 gauge wireing.. Any idea how many Watts RMS the amp is? or if you dont know what rateign are the fuses ON the amp itself?
Owen

[lgreen]

Here is a helpful wire gauge link

[bangin out]

Doom pixie, he has all the fuses in and they are both 30 thanks anyway

[DoomPixie]

both 30Amp? do you mean there are two 30Amp fuses in the amp itself then? If so then most 8 gauge wireing kits only come with a 40Amp fuse so it may have blown if he cranked it up? if there is just a 30Amp in the amp and a 30Amp in the power line then thats fine and well within limits of 8gauge.. but if the amp has 2x30Amp fuses i would go to 4Gauge for power feed.. Check the remote cable is working properly useing a multimeter and check that the earth conection is good. Also it wasnt very clear from your post but has he checked the fuses arent blown?
Owen

[Mr Teal]

I would definitely upgrade both of your wiring. 20 ft of 8 gauge has a resistance of about 14milliohms. Think of it like this, if your buddy's amp actually put out 2400W, assuming it had 12V at it's power connector and it was 100% efficient, it would be drawing 200 amps. That means that 2.8V would be dropped across the wire, and the wire itself would be dissipating 560 watts. Think of how bright the coil on a 500W heater gets, and then picture that streched out and connecting your battery and amp.

[sr20dem0n]

Originally posted by Mr Teal
I would definitely upgrade both of your wiring. 20 ft of 8 gauge has a resistance of about 14milliohms. Think of it like this, if your buddy's amp actually put out 2400W, assuming it had 12V at it's power connector and it was 100% efficient, it would be drawing 200 amps. That means that 2.8V would be dropped across the wire, and the wire itself would be dissipating 560 watts. Think of how bright the coil on a 500W heater gets, and then picture that streched out and connecting your battery and amp.

It's a pyle, it should put out about 500rms, if that

8awg should be fine for that amp because it's not actually a 2400 watt amp, it's much much less. If it was actually a 2400 watt amp then it would need 0awg or larger.


DoomPixie - Turn on/off thumps are typically caused by a bad ground. You probably had a bad ground with the 8awg and got a better ground when you upgraded to 4awg, the wire size itself wouldn't cause something like that.