Alternatively, you can hook up a gelcell battery to your amp, and wire the alternator into the battery (using a switch, or without) to reduce the strain on the rest of your car's systems.

I originally ran off 1 battery, and my subs caused my lights to flick with the beats. Secondary battery solved this problem completely.

Note: It wasn't cheap, 350$ for the new battery.

 

well if you rock 2 batteries........ BE SURE TO FUSE THEM BOTH WAYS!!!!!! you want a fuse on your main battery wire running to the second battery, and then a fuse going into that battery, and then another fuse going to the amplifier..
you want at least 2 fuses, then you could just use a distrobution block between the batteries, but best to rock 3 fuses...
a cheap fuse can be the difference between a safe system.... and a huge FIREBALL..... that used to be your car...

 

Whoops, I should have mentioned that... Yep, make sure you fuse them. Any wiring kit you use (assuming you use a wiring kit) should have the fuses already in there for you.

 

Okay so sorry to jump in here, but I got this same problem, would putting a second battery in the trunk, and have the wire that goes from my battery to my amp go from the front battery to the trunk battery fused under hood, then from trunk battery, fuse, then to the amp? or would that not work? its basically the batteries in parallel with the second one, just running the amp. I'm starting to understand all this stuff, but i still get confused.

 

You need to fuse the wire between the two batteries twice. Once at the main battery (under your hood). And once near the rear battery as well.

The reason is that the fuse doesn't work very well after (I think) 15 inches of wire.

But yes, doing what you just said will help. If you want to increase the performance of your amp, you should look for a battery with high CCA. The higher the CCA, the higher your amp can draw at once (especially if you're running a mono block for subs, or the like).