lack of power

D-oh! I forgot - forgive me. Please zero your meter as described above, and take notes on your Ohm measurements and POST THEM. I want to see amp ground to battery negative cable then a reading from battery positive terminal to alternator output if you would be so kind? Then us eggheads will be able to assist more. :)Life is too short to build slow computers or weak audio!

Here is my update. I checked the resistance of the ground cable from the amp terminal to the negative battery connector. The measurement was 0.2 Ohms. I measured the resistance from the power terminal on the amp to the battery terminal and got 0.3 Ohms. I measured the resistance of the Alternator to the Battery terminal and it was 0.3 Ohms. I'm not exactly sure but to think of these resistances though. The multimeter read 0.3 Ohms when connecting the leads. I found now way to zero it out. I then added wire to both ends to extend it so I could make my connections. I measured the resistance of the extra wire and it also came to 0.3 Ohms. I don't understand how it went from 0.3 Ohms to 0.2 Ohms or even 0.3 ohms. I started the car and disconnect the battery at the negative terminal. I then drove and started my stereo. It worked nearly perfectly. The only issue was when the bass hit very loudly, probably only when clipped, the other amp sounded distorted and sometimes cut out. However my car never died. I know, it was a weird test but I was curious about how well the alternator would keep up. My jeep used to die a lot and not start because the battery died from the stereo. My Acura didn't even die. I got annoyed when I couldn't find anything wrong. I poked the probes from my multimeter into the power and ground cables at the amp. I then put it where my back seat should be and turned it on to read voltages. I saw that the voltage read out on the multimeter did not jump around nearly as much as the volt meter on the amplifier. I noticed that when the amp was reading around 12 volts that the volt meter still read 13 or higher. I could even see when the alternator starting ramping up power because you could see the voltage slowly rise. Whether the resistance measurements are wrong or not I can tell you that the voltage was good. It barely dropped to 13 volts at high loud. My conclusion with that is my alternator seems to be powering the amp well. The next thing I was take the subs out and hook up just one of them at 4 Ohm. It was about half as loud as both of them are at 2 ohm. I then hooked one of them up at 1 Ohm. This seemed pretty darn loud. It was dark when I did this so I wasn't able to see its excursion. I'm curious to see if I am able to give these subs the power they are supposed to be getting. I believe my amp simply isn't giving them the amount of power it's supposed to. Is there anyway to measure an amps output? My Acura Integra is a hatch back. Right now it is open because my rear seats are removed. It would it sound louder when I get the seats back in and it's closed off or at least partially closed off? Kind of like a corner in a room for a home sub. Is there something silly I could have over looked that could cause this?

I do not think you overlooked much of anything - especially when you have little to no measurable resistance in your lines. Though I am a little worried that you disconnected your negative from the battery and kept running the car - that's TORTURE on your alt. :( Needless to say; do not do *that* again. It's bad juu-juu and it angers the gods of long alternator life. Seems like it is time to find a buddy or a shop to help you out with the next stage - that monoblock is 1 ohm stable so no harm at all running your DVC's down to 1 Ohm. Yeah, they will get pretty darn loud since the amp can now dump much more power in that configuration. But I digress... The help you will need is to either obtain a borrowed amp and see if it does the same thing when all hooked up in your particular vehicle or drag the amp to be tested on a similar 1-ohm setup and see if it drops off in punch when loaded. Though I would also advise that you look into the sticky-FAQ here to help eliminate as much distortion as possible before you do much more of anything else: How To Set Your Gains If power and ground are spot on, then I would just simply make sure that everything is tweaked just right. If after the tweaks are not sufficient theeeeeen I would start to swap parts/modules to see if I can reproduce the problem with known good gear. I really hope it is not the amp at fault - I Googled it up and it is damn sexy looking...Life is too short to build slow computers or weak audio!

It is normal for a multimeter to read 0.3 ohms when touching the leads together then to read 0.3 ohms through a circuit? The disconnecting the battery thing was very hard on the alternator but I was getting annoyed and wanted to see if it does what it should. LoL

el3ments wrote: It is normal for a multimeter to read 0.3 ohms when touching the leads together then to read 0.3 ohms through a circuit?

Perfectly normal, that's why you try to adjust as much out as possible or press the "ref" button with the leads touching to zero it out.

el3m3nts wrote: The disconnecting the battery thing was very hard on the alternator but I was getting annoyed and wanted to see if it does what it should. LoL

That worked up until the 80's or so when GM and others started making self-exciting alternators. Modern ones took it a step further with PWM fired, self-contained and regulated devices and started calling them "Generators" again. Load testing your alt needs to have it removed and taken to a shop test stand and run on a carbon pile under full load these days. Popping a cable off the battery while it is running sets up such a horrendous, life-threatening transient spike that could smoke the regulator and/or bridge rectifiers. You have been very naughty. ;>Life is too short to build slow computers or weak audio!

I am thinking about picking up this amp. It is fairly cheap and it's name brand at least. I want something cheap for now to ensure I don't spend a lot of money on buying another amp in case my amp works properly. Clarion DPX11551 I can get it new for $200. Are Clarions a decent brand? Do they over rate their amps? Hopefully I will either get an amp to borrow or be able to buy a cheap one soon to see if it fixes the issue.

Hi guys. This will probably be my last update on this situation. This morning I was awakened by my grandmother ringing my door bell. She asked me why my windows were broken and the doors are open. I looked at my car with the trunk and hood in the air and doors open and said "Because I got robbed". They took all of my stereo equipment. They took my MSD spark plug wires. They nearly pulled off my intake and it looked like they were trying to decide if they wanted to take my HIDs or not. Flash back... A few days ago, I believe it was Friday, I took my car for a test run to see if they amp was working properly after some troubleshooting. About 7 blocks from my house some teenagers were staring at me as I went by. They turned and drove the same direction I was traveling. I turned my stereo off because I was getting near my neighborhood. I took two turns to get on the street my house is on and I noticed they were still following me. I'm paranoid of things like this so I drove past my house. They turned off on a side street so I just pulled into a drive way and turned around. I parked walked toward my house. I looked at the street and saw that same car with those punks in it. They slowly drove by and stared at me and my car. When this happened I knew I was getting robbed. I was literally waiting for it to happen. Today it did. I figured I could either live in fear and remove my stereo and not enjoy it or enjoy it and risk it being taken. I chose to enjoy it. Now you make think I was very smart for not doing more to prevent this after I saw them follow me but what could I really do? If they wanted my stereo or anything on my car they would just wait for it to be put back in and take it. I have two cars so that one sometimes just sits there for days. My next project will be an alarm with a battery back up. Thank you guys for your help.

I am unhappy to hear that you got robbed. :( Good luck next time and yeah - security of some type should be in the plans.Life is too short to build slow computers or weak audio!