Do cheap car audio capacitors work myth busted lets find out in this test 

My experience with the Cap is this. Back in the early 2000s I had a system in my car. Without the Cap, every time my bass line drop, it would dim my headlights at night. When I installed my Cap, it stopped my headlights from dimming when a huge bass line dropped. That's my own personal experience. I didn't have any fancy metering gages at the time.

In my research when deciding on a cap for my stock charging systems I found the consensus among experts, not enthusiasts, was that the caps turned into a load on the charging system as soon as they were discharged. Because the energy stored is so small and discharges so fast compared to a battery, they at best decrease an initial dip in voltage in music playback while remaining an additional load while recharging after each peak in amp output. They seem to be more useful in banks as part of a custom high output electrical system. A better solution for stock electrical systems is using the biggest agm(most cca’s) battery that will fit in your car.

If you have stock electrical and your not planning on putting on any long demos, the first thing you should worry about is your alternator. Adding batteries and caps like these will just create more points of failure and added resistance to the system. Supercap banks are actually effective but should only be considered if you're running a bigger 3k+ system.

Let's also consider the brand we're talking about here. If it's rated like the amps , we may be looking at a 0.5f cap.😂

Back in the day when I ran a cap I noticed a big difference from having the power straight from a distro block than the cap directly to the amp. Like you said the cap after it's discharged starts sucking up the power. Yinlong FTW 😁

i would like to see this with the nvx 20 farid cap. And see if it makes a difference.

It’s been my experience that a good brand stinger example helps up to 1500-2k (EXO showed the same) but if you’re going big boy amps you should go big boy juice, agm , lithium, mechman etc

Without a cap in a larger system the alternator will be working so hard trying to stabilize the voltage that your belt might slip on the highest short loads. A super cap helps with that.

Very intrested in more testing. Although, my personal experience back in the mid 2000's, I ran 2 12's bridged at 2 ohms on an 860watt 2ch amp. The car was an econo sh|tbox and im sure it has less than a 100 amp alt. My headlights would dim when the bass dropped. I installed a 1 Farad Cap, and that issue was resolved. There's got to be something we're missing here.

In my experience they've worked good for me as a filter making my music sound much cleaner and crisp on the highs, mids, and lows

Capacitors are a great load to the electrical system when on the discharge cycle. I am not sure if the general public knows this but when a capacitor is discharged it acts as an initial short to the supply.

I have a limitless supercap bank I’d ship you to use for your tests…I only used it for 2 weeks and pulled it out only because I wanted my battery delete that lights up to go in its place lol I used it because I run 2 90 ah cmax banks and I know the initial start up takes some cca so I was using the supercap bank to take the brunt end of that and the supercap bank could start the truck with ease it has some sauce

This wasn't really fair IMO. Caps are supposed to help with deep hits. Not a constant hit. The idea is to stop spikes in battery drain. As many have commented, it stops your lights from dimming when hitting lows. Not constant lows.

I know this is an old video by now, but I'd like to know what gauge wire was used. If proper size wire was used for the amp power, I can see little help from the stiffening cap. BUT, say you undersized the POS (+) wire from the "battery" to the cap, then heavy wire from the cap to the amp, that would be an interesting test. The undersized wire would strangle the amperage like a low ohm resister. Now, I don't think the cap would do squat with a steady sine wave output except a voltage drop. But, do the quick bass attack hits with and without cap in place. I'd like to see what happens now.

You need an oscilloscope to do this test and it doesn't work and constant situations and definitely can't be seen from a volt meter the other part of this is its a give and take i personally use one to split the main led to two amps one to sub and the other to the speakers it helps with variations caps are there to smooth any waves not to add supply so maybe the volt meter is seeing the high points in the line when it is in a ripple so it would stand to reason that you would see more volt drop with a cap but its steady in stead of looking like a hart beat on a graph now I know what it's like to make videos and I would love to see another one with and oscilloscope so you can see what is happening

I had a capacitor on my system on a newer vehicle and now that I took it out due to the connections being damaged on the capacitor, my vehicle is having a hard time keeping up with the subs. Before with one, it wasn't as bad and alot less voltage drop. I have another capacitor I bought that will be replacing the old damaged one to fix the problem.

I use 500 farads in the engine bay to smooth my alternator output, and then another 500 farads right next to the amplifier to provide dynamic pulse headroom. 5 farad is tiny... i do think you experienced the voltage dropping from the cap recharging. Beyond that, its a little above my expertise to speak on what exactly was happening..

I might be way off but what about a better brand? Not a cheap one but maybe Stinger 5 Farad or ????

Take the audio system equation out. I’m wondering if a cap between the alternator/generator and battery would help absorb frequency waves or soften the initial hard start when charging begins. With a start/stop semi-hybrid could it smooth the transition from on to reduced on. Would it result in extended AGM battery life. The slight drop in voltage might not matter as much with a registered battery in the charging system.

Capacitors Do work I've used them even the guy with loud fiat uses capacitors & going to install bigger capacitors they are good filtering source

I'm not surprised by the results. My theory has always been that they reduce the voltage when your bass is not hitting therefore making your light more dim when the bass is not hitting. Therefore people assume they work

People always use these capacitor because they think it will give them more power for some reason. the purpose of these capacitors is just to be a power buffer so your battery/alternator doesn't drop in voltage (causing headlight dimming or other potential silly problems).

Prolly may need the big 3 before that upgrade but idk if that’s possible on a work bench and how many watts is that amp? You only can get about 2 farad for about 2 thousand wattsish give or take a few

If u ever had lights dimming and installed cap and it stopped u will realize what they do besides clean any line noise is that they take the load off the alternator not the battery he is testing battery and not alternator it draws power from battery and then charges the alternator which charges the capacitor the battery is the power but the capacitor and alternator stores power which charges battery back up

Hey man great video, as I was watching I was wondering, how bout trying a better brand capacitor, cuz we all know that Power Acoustik isn't a good brand anyways. Maybe Recoil or Audio pipe brand something a bit better... I would like to see that. Thx

I'd be curious if adding an additional battery would do something similar. I see a lot of people use them as a crutch for a inadequate alternator, too.

I don't get it, ... a cap in a DC circuit? Makes no sense, ... only inserting some loss. Right?

A Cap i nit a powerbooster o anything like this... Its like an Iron and flatening just the peaks. Witch is healthyer for the boardelectronics and the generator and Battery...

Awesome sir thank you

Am guessing the test should be done with an alternator to supply the capacitor with consistent 🤔 D/C CURRENT to give the capacitor a fair charging chance 🤔. Seeing these test results shows it's a waste 🗑 of time using capacitors

Has anyone ever used a series or an array of smaller, cheaper, capacitors that might hold more load?

As the kids say nowadays, "No Cap".

My installer sold me on a capacitor back in the late 90's because my lights dimmed every time my bass would hit. Installed the cap and boom, the lights still dimmed. I want to believe that caps do something but I really don't think they do anything other than look like a cool accessory. I still have mine hung up in the garage.

My cap i added to my subs didnt do anything either, lights still dim and everything

I thought caps help with the cars electric supply more stable which helps with pwm

Thanks for exposing these glorified voltmeters. Pure Junk. Prison for the sellers. Super caps are the only way to go

I would like to see a more reputable brand capacitor tested like Stinger

Ill tell you what my amp was clipping and lights dimming ,,installed amazon pyle 5.0 farad cap and problem solved

Life is always better with no cap in it...

are you here in Arizona I got one of those Maxwell super caps you can test do you think it was the quality of the cap I've run caps before and had decent results nothing like an extra battery but it did well btw you I think you gotta have the cap super close to the amp dumb I know

What about a 150 Farad cap?

I run a 18v 500f cap bank about 8 inches away for my 2 jp33s,it helps bigtime. I know that's a tiny but different than what's in the vid lol,thanks for your time man! A lot of guys need to see this

Get a super cap system and do it again. Might be surprised

Separate battery🤦🏻 I prefer it because I don't want my head light flashing when bass drops 10 at night

I bought one 5 years back,but never installed it, it's brand new in package, What a waste of money..💸🙄 oh well,we learn from our mistakes..🤓

Did you energize the cap first ??

No cap,no cap for the win.

lets be honest tho, power acoustik has never really made anything worth a dam. but yea i dont believe caps work for crap no matter who makes them. i think down 4 sound may have made one that might work but not sure.

I love seeing builds and dudes have these and think they're the shit😅 when people ask me i tell them get another battery even a small one or most importantly up your alternator game

The power from a car is not consistent, It changes as the car drives. i might have missed something here but your power supply dose not replicate this. your trying to protect the alternator nothing more.

It's very simple physics. Electricity can be thought of as a fluid. Voltage is electrical pressure. A capacitor is a container for electricity, like a battery but a able to discharge and recharge in a fraction of a second. The capacitor is nothing more than an additional container that the car's battery has to fill in addition to the demands of the stereo system. In any fluid system if you increase the volume (adding a capacitor) that must be filled from a tank (car's battery) the overall system pressure (battery voltage) will be less than before the volume increase. Bottom line - adding a giant capacitor to your system does nothing more than create a much higher demand on the vehicle's charging system causing it to fail sooner. Even more bottom line - big, shiny caps are a waste of money and to anyone with an education or 30 minutes of google usage, you look like a moron for buying and installing it. Sorry, not sorry

Great 1

You have to charge your cap before use , I don’t think he did that.

Well since it was tested at 13.5 and the cap dropped lower! Same on the second test. You didn't charge the cap correctly for testing! I truly never had to use a cap even on my duel amp and active crossover, line driver! I put one in anyway. To be safe. Vehicle was running 14.5 volts when cap was charged correctly it said 15 volts. Running a cap does work but you have excess power batteries now that hold better power than your car batteries! For you guys that are having issues first off it's normally the install that's the problem! Second if that's right and you have the problem then big 3 and clean all of the connections! Lastly if that's Done right then your vehicle has mechanical issues! I have Done many stereo systems over the years doing multiple amps, crossovers, active and passive, line drivers, eq ,etc personally I never used more than a power cap and half the Farads. Lol and Lastly don't be like this guy with all that money spent on testing tools Equipment. Real life vehicle application is deferent. Power caps are designed for rapid discharge ( bass hits ) power banks are designed for high current application.

Haaa I don't use junk like that.

👍👍👍...

he did test a Power Akoustik (ONE OF THE WORST BRANDS) they are notorious for selling cheap chinese junk!!!

strange I did not hear music.

I'd be curious to see what a high quality hybrid capacitor can do like the Stinger SPC5010 10 farad, NVX XCAP10H True 10, and Rockford RFC10HB 10. Also a standard Rockford Fosgate 2 farad. It's pretty clear that all the cheap brands and Chinese caps are junk and only good for a voltage display if they even include one lol

I have used one as a distribution block in every system I have owned at least since the 80s. You old timers might remember Richard Clark of Autosound 2000 and his trick Buick Grand National. His exhaustive tests showed a notable improvement in transient response and recommend one Farad per 1000 watts. I suspect modern China made caps might be the issue.

I USED MY FOSGATE CAP ONLY TO STOP THE HEAD LIGHTS FROM DIMMING & SO THAT THE CAP CAN TAKE MORE OF THE HIT THAN THE CAR BATTERY!

You are on point with your hypothesis. Utilizing a capacitor which only supplies a small amount of farads doesn't fairly support these type of applications. Would it help to use it as a way to aid a crank over on a vehicle if u have a battery in the back because of the distance from the power source, sure. However, you're still better off using a battery isolator with the 2 batteries in parallel if you go that route. I've been running the last for 2 years now. Wish I was aware of that in the late 90s/early 2000s when I was in high school.

When someone would buy one to stop headlights from dimming, I'd tell them hook it to the headlights

I get what ya doing but remeber when its on a car you have headlights AC and other accessories on so may be do a test live hooked up in a car not dead test on a bench

It's a class D amplifier which is designed to run straight to the battery with no cap ... If you use a class AB amp you should have different results. Correct me please if I am wrong.

150a simulated alternator for a "regular car" is pretty high. Most cars have between 70a and 120a unless it's a massive American SUV or something. It would be interesting to see the test done with a 100a simulated alternator, though I suspect they won't be much different to what you have already discovered.

This is not a surprise to any of us that been doing this hobby very long. Thank you for the tests maybe try a recoil audio cap. Or a Rockford or nvx cap see if name brand true rated cap does anything

Thank you for answering this question 🙏 I have had since about 1992👍😎 I had a 20f cap, mostly for the volt meter... It is officially a wall hanger 😂 Ioxus for the win 🙌

I’ve been going through your videos and I was curious about capacitors. I have a theory about this. If you put one in a continuous loop to the battery it would make a huge difference!

How about testing with and without the cap while playing a heavy bass song?

Honestly you would have to run everything at least 10 times and average it out. Cause with or without a cap the dyno will read more or less ea dyno run regardless. That's the nature of the beast with electronic components. Caps no longer have a place with alternators able to charge 14plus volts. And batteries that hold massive amount of angry pixies ready to dump with ea draw(bass note). Back in the 80s/90s with very small lead acid batteries and alternators that dimmed your head lights turning on your turn signal, the cap could give you a little boost. But even back then they were not worth the price of admission. Not unless you ran a pyle of em. But the audio industry was just figuring things out then. I'd love to see this test done again. But 10 pulls ea. And having the resting voltage 13.5ish. To really see if back then we were throwing are money away or not. Buying it today is absolutely not worth it. They will not due anything for your system. Unless you need a way over kill voltage display. Spend the money on a second battery. Even a lawn mower battery added would have a greater effect on a current system.

A 5 farad cap is WAY too big for both of those loads. I would be curious to see a test with a 1 or 1.5 around 1000w rms @ 2ohm, and with the cap given enough time to charge up. I imagine that 5f cap is causing more voltage drop because its trying to charge more than it's discharging.

If you're quiet you can hear the sales on crappie capacitors dropping! I would put money on that powerless acustik cap is no way 5 farad its rated just like every other cheap ass power acoustik amp way more than it really does....i likely isnt even 1 farad so its probably a choke point of the power... When you see a 5 farad from a reputable company is way bigger and way more expensive so thats a dead givaway... I think the nvx 5 farad is multible caps like 6 i cant remember. Super caps are the only caps worth buying but after you get enough low voltage super caps for 12v its expensive... That budget bass head put big super cap set in and it was a flop so i think caps are a waste just get bunch of headways there like $5.50 at battery hookup i just bought 12 (24ah) with shipping like only $80,! Why would you go any other way... i made some bus bars and it holds around 13.8 to 14.2 running my APCLE 1800.1 on 2 d2 12s at .5 ohm wide open with a 130A alt. My van has a beast module 64ah 32cell and it runs a cab45 at .5 ohm it holds high 13s with stock 140a alt at full chooch... Ill never go anything else but lithium.

Hell yeah, shooting yaself in the foot using those things. Discharging/recharging rapidly inhibits the constant flow 👍 Nice honest review, thanks man ✌️

They help if your using stock electrical on just over rms to where it strains your electrical system in car. If your going huge rms power don't use these, just get good batteries and or electrical upgrades, like a powerful alternator and batteries.

ive added one and I did get a better response and more consistent response. id recommend it and a extra battery

Well damn,i just gave a guy $30 for a audiopipe and another cap. May do my own tests and see if itll help some. I just got a 4s sodium ion18ah bank so thats way better than a cap but i may try on mine and see anyway. My civic has that dumb eld system to shut the alt off to save gas and i need to by pass it. I think my factory alt is only 70amps anyway and definitely needs uograded to run the 1500ish watt amps im using

Thank you for exposing this garbage 🗑

High-end name brand full capacitor such as Rockford Fosgate or other competitive brands are worth their weight in gold but these cheap $30 knockoffs are nothing more than epoxy filled turds and do not work they're more razzle-dazzle then functional I had a 1 farad Rockford and yes they do work if they're quality

I love capacitors they look so cool lol I have a super capacitor from xs power ioxus and order another helps a lot this cap is huge tho ….

The cap stops my lights blinking I give it time to charge before I turn my bass on about 6 minutes

I had a Rockford Fosgate .5 farad cap that weighed more than some cheap 2 farad caps.

Nothing but glorified voltmeters. Go Supercap banks.

For fairness it would be good if he had tested three or four different caps

Maybe take it apart and se if there really is a big capacitor in there?

Just like with any other car audio component, quality matters. Most of us know that a Power Acoustik amp is not the same quality as an Arc Audio or Zapco amplifier. I would be curious to see if there's a difference in the results when it comes to the price and manufacturer. I'm sure someone would donate some Maxwell caps to test against the Power Acoustik. I have 2 cap banks.....one from the company BattCaps and the other is a Stinger hybrid caps.....that I'm not using right now. You're more than welcome to use them! Filtering is another benefit that is often looked over when it comes to outboard capacitors. Just like amplifiers, and almost all other electronics out there, have filter capacitor banks inside the device on the PCB. I've noticed significant reduction in the overall noise wall at the listening end of my systems. Any of you that remember installing high end CD players, you've dealt with having to find a place to hide either a black plastic or metal box that's inline with the incoming power wires in the harness. This a filter cap. I also, and this is the most important to me in competition, is that there is a noticeable difference in the sound quality of the actual music.....especially at lower volumes when the system is seeing less signal volume because of the the knob is at 4 instead of 11.....lol! Vocals are crisper. Snare drums and the plucking off the strings of a bass guitar. It just sounds better and it's not a major chunk of change for what you get in return. Sorry for the length of this reply! I'm just passionate about car audio and even more about the members want to learn. Thank you!

Did you charge the capacitor using the diode wired in series? If not, then all it is doing is drawing power to take its initial charge

Caps really only work well when they’re done right. You have to have a cap that’s true to its rating to start with and a power source (secondary battery) close by to recharge the cap quickly. I have volt meters right before and right after my cap bank, makes it great for seeing the difference in voltage drop

I tried using caps in a few systems back in the day. All they ever did was make my wallet lighter.

It helps the battery life

What about hybrids with non replaceable alternators? My amp drains my battery after 10 minutes, voltage drops to 11 volts on the battery and the amp shuts down. The headlights etc never dim because the cars electrical system (powered by the traction battery) never drops below 12.7volts

It works dude😅

Aren't there more farrads in a battery than a capacitor. I mean you're only dealing with five farrads as compared to close to 300 for a good battery. So why not just run another battery in line.

If you open up many of the cheap caps, you will find a couple are fake, and most that aren't have a tiny tiny capacitor that wouldn't come close to 1 farad. Just a smoke and lights show. Now going back in time, most 1 farad caps were the real deal. Amps were 95% class AB, so you would see a major improvement with headlights and voltage drops during peaks. You can thank poor outsourcing from companies that don't give a rip about the product.

Think of the power like water. The battery like a pond (volts) stored power. Amperage like pressure. Its using more water (volts). Because its pressurizing a little water. quickly delivering a small amount. thus using a little more (volts). acting like a little pump (fire truck) delivering a lot of water quickly. smoothing out the flow so headlights don't dim.

Try a cheap planet audio system they have a modern 20 farad flux capacitor for 100$ . That’s fit for the 1500 watt (1100 rms 2ohm) planet audio anarchy amp 89.99 Do a decent wire setup not the cheap 4 or 3 that it would come with . I think that’ll be a good cheap system to beat and see if it really works

Capacitors can draw more power to charge than what the system can provide ! It only works when the power supply itself can give you the current you need ..You need to have more voltage going into the capacitor than the device requires to operate on .Supply regulation .My 13.8 v regulated supply has 30,000 uf on the 35 volt side and only 10,O00 uf on the regulated side at 13.8v .You need to open the amplifier up and parallel capacitors on the DC to DC power supply side ..I used to parallel 2 capacitors at 3500 uf 50 volts on my old punch 45 ! That worked !

I have and always will chuck caps in the trash there design was early 2000s probably 90s for A/B amps early 2000 almost every subwoofer rating wasn't more them 500watts kicker solo circles was the shyt especially the 90s kicker comp 200w infinity Corwin Vega

Test an old school capacitor like the Lightning Audio 1 farad against that one, you will be surprised of the difference, this new capacitors are less than .5 farad for every 5 farad claimed, i did the test already, is not that they don't work, is that their rating is a SCAM.

Cost vs. capacity improvement is difficult to justify. IF money is no object, of course the larger more expensive cap is better. It's really basic electronics.