Car Amplifier Wire Sizes

Video Transcript

"What makes a car run? Gas. What lets you be able to move around? Water. All, everything needs something, some kind of fuel to run on and amplifiers need power to run on. But what transports power? Wire. Yes, that big string of metal. And a fuse holder. RCA's, etc. etc. But let's go into power wire. What is significant about power wire? Well, like I said, it's the highway that runs the fuel to your amplifier. If you go too big actually that's okay as long as you can fit it in the hole. But if you go too small there may be dire consequences. We've all been young and we've all tried to hook up stereo at one time or another I guess, probably, if we're into that kind of a hobby. Where you have seen people run, I don't know, telephone cable for a power wire, speaker wire for power wire, on a mono block? Suicide. You're going to set the wire on fire. It's like trying to push a fire hydrant through a straw. When you have a piece of speaker wire that you're supposed to use for signal to a main power lead on an amplifier you're going to maybe shut the amp down. At least set the wire on fire. So no, we're not going to do that. The average amp wiring size that you're going to see is going to be between 8 gauge and ought gauge. This is ought gauge. This is huge. This is the big Daddy beast of wire size. This is for amplifiers that are 800 watts and up. But for than likely you'll see this on a 2000, a multi amp setup or the average big, big boss type of setup. This kit is a 4 gauge kit. And this 4 gauge is usually good for almost every application for 500 to 2000 watts for a single amplifier definitely. But a lot of people like to step up to ought gauge once they get past that 1500 RMS mark. This kit has ANL fuse holders because the amplifiers that are in excess of 1500 watts are usually carrying more than 80 amps of current to make that power. Sometimes they put in excess of 120, 130 amps of current. You might see 4 30 amp fuses that equal 120 amps. So you're going to need a fuse holder that can handle that. This one has a 200 amp on there. And that 200 amp fuse allows you to have 200 amps of impedance or 200 amps of power I mean, excuse me. That will allow you to have the 120 to fuel for your amplifier and it'll give you a few more amps so you don't blow everything up for the rest of your charging system. This kit right here has 150 amp. So if you had 150 amp of amplifier you'd get 150 amps of power through this fuse. And what fuses are used for is it keeps your amps safe. So if you have an overload or a surge you blow, you pop the fuse before you pop your amp or set something on fire. So there you go. The roller skates or the training wheels for your amplifier right here. Wire, fuse holders and then for signal RCA's. But that's a boring topic. We can get into that topic another time."