Car Audio Central - Ultimate Car Audio Forum and Community

I know we've seen Richard Clark's material here, but I just came across this. I have not read this whole article, or even a majority of it. I don't support it or anything or think Clark is wrong, I just came across it and thought it might be interesting for arguements sake. Here's an excerpt, the link is at the bottom:

"There are many rumors out there that "caps don't do anything", or that "it's been proven that they aren't effective". These rumors began largely because of some tests conducted by Richard Clark (Autosound 2000), tests that were ironically enough performed to dispel some myths that capacitors help amplifiers make more power (which they certainly don't).

The scope of Richard's testing was along a much larger span and grain of time than the fine-grain, short-duration time period that capacitors contribute when activated. As such, Richard's plots had a minimum resolution of full seconds, spanning a period of several minutes.
As capacitors typically discharge down to their lowest charge level in an installation in under a second, it is easy to understand the misinterpretations, and hence the rumors. "








http://www.betteraudio.com/geolemon/newmain/battcapalt/

Geolemon is a member of this board, and a frequent contributor to CAF. While his point about time duration is valid, it still neglects to mention that as I noted in my own article about capacitors, if your charging system is up to the task, the capacitor isn't going to be needed, and won't add anything. If the charging system isn't up to par, then the capacitor isn't going to help anyway, and with a sub-par charging system, how is the capacitor going to recharge so it can discharge? All of this aside, it still won't help voltage rails since, as I've stated a few times in the past, the capacitor can supply short bursts of current, but the voltage of a capacitor vollows the voltage of the circuit it's in, so if voltage rails sag, so does the capacitor's voltage.

from Geo's article:
"Understand also, that a the intent of installing a capacitor in the car is not to provide any semblance of a continuous supply of current - that is the alternator and/or battery's job."

something I've said all along, and exactly what a lot of misinformed people fail to understand due to a lot of idiot sales people and intallers, and a lot of misleading advertising.

"In addition, [a high output alternator] puts a higher drag on your engine, which reduces your horsepower at the wheels and acceleration, it is expensive, and it might not even be avaliable for your car, depending on what car you have obviously."

ok, for clarification on this, 1 BHP = ~52A of current from the alternator, so you're losing a whopping 2HP for every 100A of alternator output. big deal.
A new HO alternator is about $200-300 for most cars, which isn't any more expensive than buying an Optima battery and a couple of 1Fd 20 volt capacitors.
A HO alternator is available for ANY car on the road that has a 12 volt electrical system. (as opposed to a 6 volt system with a generator, like pre-'60s cars)