Sound system question

hey guys, I just bought some new equipment for a sound setup in my boat. I had a duel battery rig setup earlier this week. My question is do you think I have enough juice to run this stuff for around 3-4 hours at a time? 2 alpine sub-woofers, 4 6.5 alpine speakers, and 2 amps one 4 channel and one 2 channel. Let me know what you guys think, I don't want to get an hour's worth of sound out of this setup when the engine is off.

Thanks

alot of factors? volume? battery size/type? type of music? In general....I wouldnt' go more than a couple of hours, if your running a stock battery.

The only real way to gauge listening time is to bring along a jumpstart and let it play. Watch the time and you will have your answer.......

Cheers
Scott

no problem with good batteries. I like lifeline batteris I run a 3 amp system for 4-5 hrs easily.

Tom, I can send you a CD with music that could drain your batteries in less than an hour.

w/o the proper testing equipment, scotts idea could be the best...be careful of drianing down yoru batteries to low. If they are not deep cycle batteries, I wouldn't attemp scotts method.

Current draw of the amplifiers, Amp hours of batteries, Type of music, and Desired output level of the system are all mitigating factors.

Basically, how big are the amps, and batteries, and how loud do you want to crank it.

My professional opinion would be do not rail it more than an hour, to an hour and a half.

Make sure when you do this for the first time, you are close to the boat, and some-what sober, so you can hear the system when it starts to DC and back the "KNOB" down before it starts to melt voice coils.

And contrary to Scotts theory, If you drain the batteries to the point of having to jump it, you have allready started damaging the batteries, the amps, and most importantly the speakers. Unless you were listening to it at a volume so low, you had to be within 2 feet of the speakers to hear it. But even then you may as well still be taking your nice new "HIGH DOLLAR" battery directly from the place you bought it, straight to the recycler.

Doug- At the end of all this, the only real way to know is to play the darn thing. If you are worried about your batteries then grab a Volt meter (Harbour freight sells them for $3.99 on sale all the time) and hook it to the + and - terminals of the stereo battery. You are looking for the voltage to drop to an average of about 12.2. It may drop below that during loud bass but you want an average or static reading. So every once in a while turn the stereo off for a few minutes and check the battery voltage. Anything below 12.2/12.0 COULD start damaging your battery depending on what type battery you have. There are companies that sell devices that will automatically turn off the stereo when battery voltage gets to low and there are LED's for the dash that will change color as voltage drops. But in the end the only real way to answer your question is to play it and eventually you will get a feeling for how loud and long you can play.

Also, did the second battery simply get paralled with the first or are you using some type of "Isolator" device? In other words are you listening to one or both batteries with the key off? Two batteries will last twice as long....but could leave you stranded.

Good Luck
Scott