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.

Current:
Current is the measure of the flow of electrons passing through a given point in a circuit in a given amount of time. The unit is the amp(ere). Since it would be impractical to state the actual number of electrons flowing through the conductor, one amp is defined by 1 coulomb per second. One coulomb equals 6,240,000,000,000,000,000 electrons. For now, just remember that it indicates the amount of current flow through a circuit.
I know that the water flow analogy is getting old but it is still a very good way to explain basic electrical properties to beginners. The diagram below shows a water pump, a couple of sections of pipe (marked 'a' & 'c') and a valve (marked 'b'). If the pressure (voltage) in pipe section 'a' is constant, and the valve is only slightly open the current flow into pipe 'c' is going to be small. If we open the valve to its halfway point, the current flow will increase but will still be somewhat limited. When the valve is fully opened, the flow will be as high as possible. As you can see, the flow of current is inversely proportional to the 'resistance' offered by the valve.

small valve opening = high resistance = reduced current flow large valve opening = lower resistance = increased current flow

To follow the analogy from the voltage page... The following diagram shows faucets with both high and low current flow. Below the faucets you'll see a section of wire with electrons flowing through it. The wire with more electron flow has more current flow. The wire with fewer electrons has less current flow.

You should remember:
1.Current is the rate of electron flow.

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