Hey folks, i am new to this discussion board thing...I have a 2007 Ford Mustang, i installed an Alpine W205 head unit up front, i have Alpine SPR-57LS 5x7/6x8 component speakers up front, and momo/polk 6x9's in the rear deck, these speakers are connected to an alpine pdx 4.100 4 channel amp, my subs are two 10 inch alpine type e's connected directly to a sony xm gtr-2022 2 channel amp, i am also running a clarion equalizer off the rca's from head unit, and a clarion mcd360 crossover off of the rca's from the equalizer, my amps' rca's are run off of this crossover, all of this is connected to a rockford fosgate 1 farad capacitor all wired up with 4 gauge power and ground wire connected to 4 gauge => 8 gauge power wire/ ground wire splitters, the bass amp and subs work fine, but when im driving or sitting in the driveway with the music on, sometimes my driver side speakers cut out in the front and the back but the passenger side speakers stay on, other times all 4 speakers cut out and just the bass plays, other times ill hear the speakers struggling to play, they have a type of crackling noise, then other times both subs and speakers stop playing, and sometimes everything plays correctly and sounds awesome, i know it is not the amp because i had an older alpine mrp-f300 4 channel running the speakers, and i know its not the speakers because these are 4 brand new speakers and the old ones used to have the same problem. Could this be because i do not have a big enough capacitor or maybe its a ground problem or maybe i need bigger power wires and splitters. All of my rca's and speaker wire connections are good and none of them are cut or messed up, as ive rewired the system about a week ago and the same problems keep happening.
I would start with removing the equalizer from your system, and seeing if that resolves your problem. From what I read it in your posting here, (and based on your description of the problem) I would first suspect that your equalizer was the root cause of everything. Then, I would continue by rewiring the power side of your system If your capacitor is in fact installed in front of BOTH AMPS. You made it sound like you have your capacitor feeding not only the subwoofer channel amplifier, but your front, and rear channels amplifier too... Is that the case? You don't need to use a capacitor for the front and rear channels, only the subwoofers, which require a lot of wattage, (and relates directly to power consumption). I just did some checking, and your capacitor is more than enough to supply adequate power to the amplifier for your subwoofers, (depending upon how you have them wired) which are only rated at 250 W RMS, and your amplifier is only capable of 202 W into a four ohm load, 250 W into a two ohm load, and 500 W bridged into a 4 ohm load. Therefore I will assume that you want to keep your system around for a while, so you've probably wired it so that your subwoofer amplifier is seeing a 4 ohm load on each channel for your subwoofer's, (based on their specs). I would run a second 4 gauge, (properly fused) power cable to whichever amplifier is furthest from your battery, (I'll say it's your subwoofer amplifier for the sake of simplicity) install the capacitor in between the battery, and the subwoofer amplifier. I would run my original 4 gauge cable to the amplifier for the front and rear channels, (without a capacitor} and without any splitters of any kind, (and if it were me without the equalizer for now). Drive the car for a few days, at the very least long enough so that you could be reasonably certain that everything was working properly without the equalizer. And only then would I reinstall the equalizer, (with a much smaller a gauge power wire then 4 gauge) and see if everything was still working correctly.