I have two amps one with 400 watts RMS x 1 and one with 100 watts RMS x 2. plus I have a 7 inch in dash screen, 6.5 inch screen in the back, CD Changer and XM Radio. I am looking to upgrade my battery, and I am not for sure which one to get. The Optima Yellow Top or the Red Top?

Any suggestions?

 

I'd personally go with a deep cycle yellow top. I love em! I never had trouble with it. Red tops are a step down, but if you ever wanted a future upgrade on subs/amps it would be good to have a yellow top.

 

which yellow top did you get? The D34

 

Yellow top is intended for use with high current drains When the car is Not running. Red tops are intended for starting the car. A new battery is really not needed in your situation though, unless you play your stereo without the car running.

--Don

 

I am getting slight dimming when the bass hits. The dimming I can only notice it when I am idle and it is usually the gauge cluster lights and the map light, if I have it on.

 

hrrmmmmm and u have a stock battery? All im saying is a yellow top would kill the dimming problem. especially with those kinds of amps. I have 2 1200 watt amps and a 1 300 watt amp.. yellow top and fared cap and mine doesnt dim until i really turn it up.

 

Image you have all of that with a stock alt?

 

yessir. check out my site. Running 0 guage like a ****.

 

people in this forum have their heads up their as*es...the yellow top is a deep cycle battery, that is a no no for starter battery. the red top is for starter applications. the yellow top is used for secondary battery setups in which the alternator charges up both batteries and they are kept seperate from each other with an isolator. the yellow top would have all audio equipment on it and that would help a lot with eliminating dimming. it's a lose-lose situation though. the second battery means that the alternator has to work harder to keep 2 batteries charged up. so you still might get dimming unless the alternator is replaced with a high output alternator......and a cap won't do jack for you unless you have like 25+ farads..i really dont feel like going over this cap nonsense again though.

 

head up my asses?? lol

The biggest difference between a regular battery and a deep cycle is the way they discharge. A deep cycle is designed to deliver somewhat low levels of current over long periods of time and be able to be cycled a good number of times. A starting battery is designed to deliver high levels of current over short periods of time (think starting). A Yellow Top is a starting/deep cycle battery. It can provide the current needed to start a car, but it can also provide steady current over a long period of time.

If you drain a starting battery down to around 10.5 volts too many times, you will essentially kill it. It won't take a full charge or hold a good charge for very long if it has been drained too many times. A deep cycle can be drained and charged many times and still hold it's charge because of it's design.

Once a car is running, the battery is essentially no longer needed. Everything is supposed to be powered off the battery providing little doses of current when needed. A big stereo can easily destroy a battery by pulling more current than the alternator can provide. It will then feed from the battery and the battery will not receive a good charge thus shortening its life.

A Yellow Top will work fine as a main battery provided it has enough CCA for your car. I don't remember the exact specs, but I think the Yellow Tops are rated at 575 CCA.

** Yellow tops are a starter battery i believe. And I believe per 500 watt in your system, you need a cap. in order for it to work super well. Also, I really dont appreciate you just coming in here saying people have there heads up there asses. Optima is Optima, it all depends on what you need, we were just sharing our opinions. *

 

no, yellow tops are not starter batteries...and good luck with caps, 98% of the time they are just a waste of money. i have a thread on here that's really old that explains caps in detail (energy storage in Joules and what not), go search for it. yea a yellow top will work in the application, but it's not designed for it.

 

sounds like someone at BB,CC convinced you caps will make your system sound alot better. the only real purpose i believe of yellow tops is if you play your system for a long time with the car off.

 

not even BB or CC, it's people on the internet that have no idea what they are talking about. people just get too much incorrect information from bad sources. if you are interested in things electrical like this you should take classes in physics so you can get the correct info.

 

I just went to Optima's website and it said that the yellow top could be used for a Starting battery if you had high accessories. Like I said before I have a headunit, hideaway unit, a extra screen, Xm radio, a CD Changer, 2 amps, a two way alarm, a radar detector and a cell phone charger. And sometimes at lunch I like to pop in the Chappelle show DVD and get a few laughs in to make the day go by faster and with how high gas prices are I wouldn't want to sit there with my car on so all of that power would be coming from the battery. So if that is the situation wouldn't me by doing that void the warranty on a red top?

 

yellow is better. paint it to match your car. no one will ever know.

 

yea which one does everyone get....the d34?

 

bump......anybody???

 

Someone above stated that there headlights dim when the bass hits. You might want to upgrade your ground. I'd be willing to bet if you hypergrounded your vehicle that whole dimming thing would vanish!!!

 

Dear friendhas max:

I agree with your technical discussion for the most part. However there are many variables that change the performance of a battery that are beyond a general overview such as you have given.

I have had both the red top and yellow top in my I30 and can say, without any doubt, that the yellow top outperformed the red in my situation. No electronics were changed when the red top died and I went with the yellow.

I do have a small system, Orion 225 running the subs @ 1/2 ohm and a 4 channel running the upper end. I play it while working outside for decent periods of time, usually 1-2 hours at a medium to low volume with the bass reduced. My red top lasted about 5 months before it had trouble starting the car. Yellow top has been in since and no problems exist.

This is not meant as an attack on your technical qualifications, but as a real-world example.