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In my conversations with RC, He told me that the main reason he used the caps was to absorb A\C ripple, the bad stuff that comes off the alterntor. Caps do a great job of this, but they were never supposed tobolster a system current capacity.

depends on the specs of the capacitors but within a small variance, they'd be about equal.. the three 1Fd caps might actually have considerably more capacity. It really comes down to comparing ESR, voltage and capacitance. the single 3Fd cap is going to be cheaper than three 1Fd caps though, if this is for a single amplifier.. and I don't think any difference between the two setups would be noticeable.
end result, go with the cheaper option.

Cool.

What I should have said was up to 3 farad using multiple caps for higher power systems.

Would having multiple capacitors draw much more than a single larger one? (for instance three 1 farads instead of a single 3 farad)

well, a 3Fd cap would handle a 3Kw amplifier.
I don't think you need more than that as I'd use one cap per amplifier..
that said, if you need more capacitance, they make bus bars to run parallel capacitors. you can string 3 together with a plate and have triple the capacitance without hurting the ESR.

Knukoncepts probably isn't the cheapest, but it's the cheapest good quality cabling.

Black hole lol

So I presume that 3 Fd should be the largest anyone goes?

the supercaps have a very high ESR which makes them useless for these applications.
a smaller electrolytic like the 1-3Fd ones have much lower ESR when made properly, which means they'll respond much more quickly.
They can help transient response to the amp IF the electrical system can already handle the current draw, in my opinion.
In other words if your alternator is already big enough, and your voltage rails don't sag, the capacitor(s) will supply current to the amplifiers' power supplies microseconds faster than it would take for the alternator to respond in a similar manner, as the capacitors have a low ESR and are physically close to the amplifiers.
Mind you, this doesn't contradict RC. He's still right that, as I've been saying here for some time, that capacitors aren't a replacement for an adequate charging system, and they won't make up for the need for a larger alternator.

I did the alternator(MCReman 170 amp) before I did the cap, but I'm only running 4 gauge(about an 8 foot run) to around 960 watts RMS of which I know I'm never using for any extended period of time. I don't often listen to THAT type of music, plus I hate distortion.

After reading about that low impedance dealie I may very well upgrade my cap to ground, amp(s) to ground, and cap to amp(s) wires at least. If you imagine a cap as a mini power supply for transients that makes sense. Of course bigger alternator to cap and ground wires would get that thing recharged quicker as well.

Crap, more money dumped into that black hole of a car audio system. 1/0 gauge here I come.

Knukonconcepts the cheapest?

-Fishy

Lol, read this:

http://www.carsound.com/UBB/ultimatebb. ... p=2#000042

There's your quote William. Seems like he still likes the theory ok and was possibly referring to the super duper stuff as "pieces of junk". He sure does seem pretty vague about the benefits of either, however. The use of "could be beneficial" and "only 2 would stand a chance of benefitting a system" kinda makes me think I might've wasted 150 bucks on mine.

It seems not all caps are built alike. Maybe I lucked into a good one. Hmmm... mine's all chrome, a funky shape, and has "Tsunami" written on it.

I'm not too optimistic.

-Fishy

fishy, do you have a high output alternator, or any upgraded electrical system? also what are you running, how many watts? They lose their value if your cars electrical system cannot supply power to it, it just becomes another thing that is drawing current that cant be supplied.

Also, I think I read a discussion about that particular "RC" test and I thought it was a comparison between your typical .5F-3F electrolytic capacitor and those expensive "hybrid super caps" that utilize a combination of electrolytic and carbon based caps in one bank.

I thought the conclusion was that these high-Farad hybrid guys weren't any more beneficial than your run of the mill electrolytic.

Maybe they were both equally useless.

:)

-Fishy