16 volt

A Car Stereo That Can Kill You? Cool.

There may be no weirder tech-to-tech combat than the fight to build the world's most powerful sound system.

Troy Irving's 18-year-old Dodge Caravan has a hell of a sound system: 72 amplifiers-you got it, 72-and 36 big 16-volt batteries to put out the 130,000 watts of power needed to rumble his nine 15-inch subwoofers. To put that into perspective, the most powerful production-car audio I know of is the $230,000+ 2003 Aston Martin Vanquish's 1,200-watt system. Irving carries $80,000 worth of audio alone, in a vehicle that is worth, admittedly, slightly less than the Maybach. Must be fun to ride down Main Street with the windows rolled down, right?

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