do i match the wire gauge with the max or the rms on my amp.?

Question

do i pick a wire for the max power or for the rms power

Answer 1

Go with the bigest wire that your amplifer will hold, why because unless you have a monster system your amplifer will only "eat" so much power. if you feed it with big wire it will be full and play hard, plus it wil not use any more power than it is rated at consuming, but if you feed it to little it will sound like *** and will over work to TRY to play hard (if it ever has a chance to). also speaker wire is the same ,bigger wire means more signal to the speakers, but no need to over do it here if your amp is under 800 watts than 12 gauge would be as thick as I would go, your amp can only push so much and it wont push more than its max (unless it is blowing up at that insant).

Answer 2

Any talk about primary wire being 'too big' for a given electrical load is, for the most part, nonsense. If you hear someone tell you big wire requires more batteries and capacitors, chances are he's trying to sell you some batteries and capacitors. Go with as large a wire as is practical. It is always better to err on the side of caution and overbuild your power distribution system (including your ground) than to have it too small and risk blowing fuses or worse, creating a fire risk. Plus, if the stereo bug bites again (it almost always does), and you decide to upgrade later on down the road, you won't have to rip it all out to install heavier-gauge wire.

Additional batteries, as well as capacitors, come into play when the load you place on the system exceeds the car's ability to generate power, such as a sitiuation where you're pushing 1000 watts and have a 70-amp alternator. Since you are running at about 13.5V, 13.5V x 70A = 945W = not enough power. Capacitors provide a momentary reserve of power when demand exceeds supply (of course, a better alternative is a high-output alternator).

But I digress.

The short answer to your question is, you can scrape by using continuous power (rms) as a wiring guide, but I would go with big wire, if possible.

Answer 3

Yea just go with the rms. You don't want to have to big of a power cable because then you will have to start buying more equipment, such as batteries and capacitors. I wouldn't recommend anything over 4 gauge unless you have a huge system and lots of power to support it.

Answer 4

Always go by RMS, rating, because this is the most accurate and most continuous power rating.

Answer 5

RMS when selecting speaker wire. Max amperage draw from amplifier when selecting power/ground wire.

Answer 6

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Answer 7

rms should handle it.