Please 'Boom' Responsibly As most of you have noticed, the noise ordinances have become much tougher lately. Most of this is due to idiots, yes IDIOTS, who drive through residential areas with their windows down while their system is playing at full power. To make things worse, the music they listen to has all sorts of foul language that's not suitable for small children, (who may be playing outside). There are even a few people, who are even beyond idiot status, that play their systems at full power through residential areas after 10:00 PM (when many people go to bed). I don't believe that this type of behavior is good for the industry. If the fines get too stiff, people will stop buying large systems. If this happens, more people will get out of car audio (who wants a mediocre system). People get interested in things because they're exciting. A deck and four 6.5" speakers are not going to interest many of the younger car audio enthusiasts. If car audio enthusiasts keep annoying more and more people, the fines will keep getting tougher. All of this will only reduce interest in the equipment that fuels the industry. If you want to listen to your system at full volume, get out on the highway where there's little chance of bothering anyone. When you get to a red light, turn it down. If the only thing attractive about you is your 'system', you have some work to do. Bottom line... Think about what you're doing. Think about other people. It's not the end of the world if you have to turn the volume down for a little while.

Note:
All voltages and currents that we have discussed so far have been of the DC variety. The next section will describe the difference between AC and DC voltages.
DIRECT CURRENT
Direct current (DC) is the type of current that is supplied by batteries. The electrical force exerted by the battery is constant. This does not mean that it never changes, but it is not constantly changing polarity. The "difference of potential" (means the same as voltage) stays either positive or negative with respect to its "reference" (usually designated as ground).
ALTERNATING CURRENT
Alternating current is different from DC in that it "periodically" changes polarity. "Periodically" in the United States is 120 times/second. This is 60 complete cycles per second. I will go into more detail about different types of AC voltage measurements later in this tutorial.

If you look at the diagram above you will see that the DC voltage is constant. The AC voltage is continuously changing. Let's say that the voltage of "Z" is 10 volts DC. The AC waveform has a few points on it marked. The voltages at those points are listed below. Please understand that the voltages are only at that point in time. If the waveform voltage was measured with a volt meter, it would read approximately 10 volts AC. All voltages are referenced to the black line.
A. 11 volts B. 2 volts C. 5 volts D. -5 volts E. -13 volts

I will explain more about measuring AC voltage later in this tutorial.

You should remember:
1.D.C. is a type of voltage which does NOT cross a point of reference at regular intervals.
2.A.C. is a type of voltage which DOES cross a point of reference at regular intervals.

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