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.


Voltage:
As we said on the previous page, if work is to be done, something has to move. For something to move, a force has to be applied to the object. In electronics, that force is voltage. Voltage is the measure of difference of potential (electrical force) between two points. The volt is the unit of measure. Voltage can be described as electrical pressure.
Water Analogy:
If you look at the two water towers below, you can see that one is taller than the other. You can also see the water level is higher (with respect to the outlet of the faucet). This means that the column of water is taller and therefore applies more pressure on the bottom of the column of water (this is the pressure you feel on your ears when you swim to the bottom of a deep swimming pool). Since the taller column of water is exerting more pressure on the bottom of the water column, the pressure will be greater at its faucet (because of the greater difference between the top of the water in the tower and the level of the faucet). The taller tower would force more water from the faucet in a given amount of time than the short tower. The difference of 'potential' is relative to the height of the column of water above the faucet. If the faucet was at the same level as the top of the water column, there would be virtually no water flow because there would be no difference of potential.


In the following diagram you can see that there are now 2 faucets on the taller tower. You can also see that the vertical distance from the top of the water column (on the taller tower) to the outlet of the higher faucet is the same as the distance from the top of the water column on the smaller tower to its faucet's outlet. The higher faucet on the taller tower has the same rate of flow as the smaller tower because they have the same difference of 'potential' from the point of highest potential (the top of the water column) to the point of lowest potential (the faucet's outlet).

If we increase or decrease the difference of potential (voltage/pressure) on the system and all else remains constant (the faucet remains fully open), the flow (current) will increase or decrease in proportion to the change in pressure. In other words, if you increase the pressure, there will be an increase in the amount of water flowing out of the faucet. It is the same in an electrical circuit (without the faucet of course). When a given voltage is applied to a given resistor (a simple electronic device to be covered later) there will be a flow of current. If the voltage is increased or decreased there will be a corresponding proportionate increase or decrease in current.

You should remember:
1.Voltage is electrical force.


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