Blown Alternator/ problem with Amp

I was wondering if anyone could help me with a problem that I am having with my girlfriend's car. She has a '96 Saturn SL2. I bought her a stereo system for her birthday and installed it. Nothing special, 2 12"s and a 600W amp. The only problem is about two days after I installed it, her alternator blew. Her garage installed a new one, which blew the second they put the fuse back in the amp power wire. She hasn't been able to listen to it since. I looked up the alternator output and found that it is higher than the output of my 300zx's and almost as much as my Accord. And the Z and the Honda are each handleing 2000W in amps, ground effects, neons, etc. What can I do so that the car can handle the load from the amp. Thank you in advance.

Thats a werid one, my guess would be that theres a short. I have a system in my 95 sl2, 2 12"'s with a 440 amp, and have had no problems with it at all. I would say check over the installation and make sure nothing's shorting out.

That's what I thought at first. I checked all of the wires, power is fine, ground is solid to the frame. Could it just be that the battery is old? If so a new battery and a cap would fix the problem, right?

I'm running one 12" 500 watt RMS, with an 1800 max watt Kenwood amp. The amp has only been in there for a week, but everything seems to be fine.

I'm going to get a new alternator before I buy a second Kenwood for my other 12" though.

If so a new battery and a cap would fix the problem, right?

I would suggest testing the battery to check the power it has, but i really dont know if that would be whats eatting through alternators, but it is worth a try. As for a cap, that will really just store power for ya to give a bigger hit.

i don't know much about amps, but i'm leaning towards racer's theory along the lines of a short, but then i wonder, why would the alternator blow and not a fuse/fuseible link/wire? go ahead and test the battery/charging system(some part stores such as autozone will do it for free, but watch and make sure they hook up the tester right, they said my stock 105 alternater was putting out 180amps) then look into a bad amp

sounds like you either have a short or an excessive amp draw which should also kill the battery

600 Wrms at 12 volts is 50 amps. How big are the alternators? That's a large draw. 2000 Wrms is 167 amps! That's pretty hefty battery cables you need.
My neighbour put a 2nd alternator and battery in to power his big sterio.
BTW: how long do your ears last? My stock sterio is good for 95db, undistorted.
Damage starts at 100 db. I like listening to music.

The alt. in your saturn should be around 50 amps. So what do you mean by it "blew"

By blew i mean it stopped working, I didn't disassemble them so I don't know exactly what happened. I replaced the amp with a 550W watt model from a different company, and it works fine. Thanks sierrap615 (http://www.automotiveforums.com/vbulletin/member.php?u=79929), for the idea about the aamp being faulty. vbmenu_register("postmenu_4111453", true);