No where else to put this so here it is. A 1993 vehicle, had a JVC cassette deck in it with 45w speakers. I put a new Clarion in, about 140w. Speakers work and all but I cant put the volume up more than about 5-10% without the speakers distorting. Would it be because I am over driving the speakers? It sounds like they are blown, but the are not.

check your audio setting on the clarion. It is easier to destroy speakers with too little power then to much since the square wave kills faster. Mostly.. mostly having more power helps with THD and gives you more head room.. ie playing louder but clearer. I would pull the speakers out and try hooking them up to another audio sources and see if they still sound bad. Also try different speakers using the same radio. You may have a bad head unit with a blown mosfet or something. Don’t forget to check your impedance also. Are the 45 watt speakers factory?

If all else fails verify your grounds. Ground loops are a common problem and can amplify with more volume. Some cars did use the chaise as a common ground for their speakers.. A big pain in the ars.

I'll tell you a little more. First, the speakers worked fine with the unit I removed. The vehicle is a bus. It is set up as left and right channel. There are 4-45w/4 ohm speakers per channel. A friend is thinking that its probably pulling 1 ohm, which isnt good. Later today I will check to see what the ohms are, just to be sure. I would "think" that if a 1995 radio could handle it, a 2010 radio could handle it. These are factory 5.25" speakers.

Got it working correctly, dont know why though. I disconnected the speaker grounds from the back of the head and everything sounds good now. I cant explain why that worked but it did. So in theory, I have no speaker grounds. They are probably using the chassis ground or something.....?