Short answer is,.. do what you have to do to fix it.
Long answer is, it 2008 and you have to do what you have to do!.
Happy New Year.

 

Silver, I previously had a 1200 watt amp and now its a 2200 watt amp. Thats still pretty significant huh? What did he end up replacing? The whole altenator or the cable or what?

 

Both, since the post on the alternator and the cable end were both burned.
You may be able to remove the old cable and clean the post if it didn't melt or crumble.
It sounds like you may have had a loose/corroded connection at the alternator that started your problems. Running with the negative cable off likely forced the alternator to max output current which probably accelerated the failure of the cable end that you had observed glowing/arcing. Your alternator may be damaged internally which gives you a good reason to upgrade to a higher output version that will support your amp.

 

go spend some cash on a good 200 amp (or higher) alternator and an optima red or yellow top battery. you are looking at about 300$ or so, but if you go and replace the alternator and battery with the factory spec your looking at doing it agian VERY soon..say 2 days to 2 months.e bay has lots of alternators on sale and autozone sells optima batteries. then after you fix the amp and alternator, go to wally world and buy one of the caps they sell, i think they still sell them. i think your looking for something like 1 farad, don't know for sure, never bought one.

 

I think walmart only carries full amp install kits
best buy or somewhere like that carries individual caps-I got a rockford fosgate cap-1 farid from best buy

 

Forget about the amp for now, go and get a GOOD alternator (not Autozone).
Repair the cable end that goes to it, and replace the battery with an Interstate 1000 CCA, don't buy an Optima, we replace alot of those in a year, due to this problem. Optimas are only good as an auxiliary battery. (I'm sure alot of people may disagree with me but I call what I see). If you play your stereo with the ignition off alot, you should consider having an aux. battery set up installed. Clean the battery terminals really good, coat them w/ a battery terminal protector and you are done. Then get a Capacitor installed for your sound system, then you should be fine. Just because your amp says 2200 watts, it doesn't mean that it constantly puts out 2200 watts, that's only peak watts and a capacitor will help save your battery and alternator during those peak events.