Hey all. I drive like 160 miles a day during the week. I'm either naturally tripping out, or my stereo is a piece of crap. Possibly both.

Anyhow, if I pull the car out of the garage, or in the morning, or any time the car hasn't been exposed to a lot of sun or heat... The radio sounds pretty good. ( I have some infinity speakers hooked up)

When I get in my car to go home at the end of a Sunny weekday, it just seems like I can't turn it up quite as loud before the music begins to distort.

I figure this is normal, but wanted to see if decent after-market stereos also have this problem?

 

I noticed that running the AC seemed to help; probably because the vent runs right along the top of the stereo.

 

My old (crappy) Kenwood power amp would run worse on hot days, you could tell the sub output was less and less and one time driving to the Ozarks it shut down. If an amp is operating normally, has adequate ventilation, is hooked up correctly, not strained etc. - it should not be doing that.

Your on the right track trying to keep it cool. Ventilation helps, be sure it's not strained, finally it may be past it's prime or have other issues and may need to be replaced eventually.