Stereo Amp Power Draw?

[terraform]

Hi,

I bought my car a few months back. The previous owner had installed what I considered to be way too big of an amp/sub combo in the car. It's a Jensen 600 watt amp and 2x12 subs. Anyway, I've been having some trouble with the charging system, as the car does not like to start sometimes. For some reason, this is usually right after it's been driven for some amount of time. I thought this was the starter initially, but someone jumped the car once when it wouldn't turn over, and it worked.

So, on to the electrical system. The car has a new(er) battery and a new(er) replacement OEM altenater. Also, it has the stock pulley system and the battery does accept a charge when I hook a battery charger up to it.

OK, now all that's out of the way. Now for the real question. I decided to check the amp settings (since, like I said, this is alot more bass than I need) and I found that virtually everything related to output level was maxed out. So, I set the output level to about midway and turned off the bass boost, in hopes that this would conserve some power and perhaps give the altenator an advantage over this big amp. What I want to know is - is this going to make any difference?

Also, do amps draw the same amount of power regardless of what output level they're set at?

 

[94-302-vert]

Amps draw a proportional amount of current off the battery to what power they are putting out.

My car has been doing the same thing (slow hot starts) so I am thinking it is battery. However if you want to rule out the stereo disconnect it from the battery, either directly or by removing the fuse on the amp power lead (probably an 8ga cable for that amp).

As for setting the amp controls, you are supposed to turn the control on the amp all the way down, then turn the volume on the stereo all the way up then slowly turn up the control on the amp until you hear distortion, then back it down slightly. Now you can also do this same type of method at say half volume to get the desired level of bass for that volume level if you want.