Rep Power: 329

OK, i replaced my audiobahn amp with an alpine M1000, pretty much one of their top of the line amps, on tuesday. the audiobahn (has 4 gauge inputs) had an 8 gauge power and ground wire to it, but was capable of 4 gauge. for the alpine, i decided to give it 4 gauge. but my poor *** didn't want to replace the dist block (4ga. to 8 ga.), so i soldered the ends of t 8 gauge wires from the block to make a 4 gauge one and connected the amp.

needless to say, after about an hour tuning the amp, i was VERY dissapointed. was not louder (1000W rms the sub was getting now compared to 600W rms before). it didn't sound particularly cleaner. and it cost me a lot more. the only nice thing i noticed was the light dimming was very low now, i'm still running the stock battery too (for now).

today i removed the alpine amp for the audiobahn one. i did nothing to it when i removed it (regarding settings), yet when i put it back in with the now 4 gauge inputs it got noticibly louder than before. i had to turn the bass down from where i had it at before, it was that noticible.

has anyone else upgraded wiring and experienced a big improvement? the 8 gauge wire was maybe a foot long from the dist. block, i always figured it would be ok for such a short run. just m

 
Rep Power: 0

The only time i upgraded wiring was when going from two power wires both ten quage to one 8 guage wire, i didn't notice a difference, besides the fact it was less ghetto.


So the M1000 didn't live up to your expectations? Sorry to hear you spent money to find out. Similiar things have happened to me before. Sorry i couldn't help you really with an answer, i'm just bored and felt the need to post something in here, this board has been so dead the last year. I've been reading caraudioforum.com lately, they roll through over 3 pages of posts a day.

 
Rep Power: 812

I have 4 gauge power going to a sub amp with only a couple hundred rms watts. That thing pounds my 10" like crazy. If you're unsure, always get bigger gauge wires. And make sure the ground wire is the same size as power.

 
Rep Power: 0

nope... never noticed any power changes, although i did go from a 300 wat system with a sngle 8 gauge to a 2 kw system with 1/0 gauge, and since then, every system ive had has run off my 1/0 gauge...

upgrade your grounds though under the hood, nd you will notice the chnges in lights not dimming nerly s much...

hopefully when im ble to buy my second idmax, first one gets bought tomorrow, ill be done with this damn system... heh... ill be up at 2100 wtts

 
Rep Power: 346

You biting my subs again dude ...damn, you getting yours first though...I have to wait a couple months.

 
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BTW, the big three or magic three or whatever else you might want to call it has been talked about on here before, and people have requested DIY's before but i haven't seen them, can you do a quick DIY for the "big three" Ludlam? Pictures would be nice but a step by step written example would be better than nothing. I'm not familiar with any of the wires in my engine compartment so i'd never want to try replacing these grounds.

 
Rep Power: 329

see, i installed a grounding kit and really haven't noticed much of anything. i'm too lazy to upgrade much else right now, the other wires look like a pain. i'm selling the alpine amp and picked up an orion hcca to install and see how i like it that'll be my net project is getting that thing to pound.