Panasonic CT RX-810 Speaker troubles

[Syntho]

Hello everyone,
I picked up a Panasonic RX CT-810 at a thrift store around two years ago as my first boombox and it has been literally my pride and joy. I bring it everywhere I go with mixtapes me and my friends make. Recently however I have run into issues with the attached speakers.

When the volume is about halfway or more, the speakers start clipping. I know that it's not the tape/player because when I plug in headphones audio sounds fine. For the audio to not clip I have to keep the music at a level where you can barely hear it in a silent room.
(A weird thing however is that the radio seems to work pretty decent on the speakers, just when I play tapes it clips badly)
Things I've tried:
1) Changed batteries
2) Restripped wires
3) Switching speakers into the box (Left speaker wires go into right channel and vice versa)

I have no idea what else to try to save this box. Are the speakers just broken? I do not have a power cord to try it on AC power. I was hoping that somebody here might be able to diagnose this issue.

PS: I'm sorry if I look like a total noob here, I just really want to fix my box to continue jamming out everywhere I go.

 

[Cpl-Chronic]

Kind of vague to go on but I bet the caps are going in the power block & has nothing to do with speakers. Your headphones take a very small fraction of the power required to drive the speakers so they sound clear. Also, the tape deck draws a lot of power, relatively to run the motors, gears, etc so when you play taped, there is less raw current to drive the speakers.

Only a guess, but the most likely, give your limited description. Have you tried powering it with batteries or an AC to DC adapter if possible?

Cpl

 

[Beosystem10]

^^^^^ What Cpl said, and also; the headphones aren't driven by the final audio chip but by an earlier stage so the issue could be related to the final A/F chip itself as it's that which supplies the speakers.

Another thought that crossed my mind here is whether this model has foam suspension on its speakers? The foam is used for its ability to allow for long travel and at the same time to provide good damping characteristics but sadly, even the very best speakers when their suspension rings are foam tend to need the foam replacing every decade or so.

Don't worry, you'll find that this can be dealt with one way or another. First thing I'd be doing to establish whether the speakers themselves are the cause of this is to try a different pair that share the power handling and impedance values of the originals. Power handling is expressed in Watts (W) and impedance in Ohms (Ω), you can safely use a speaker with a slightly higher impedance figure (say 6 Ohms instead of the usual 4) but try a pair that have a similar or marginally higher power handling figure in Watts as a lower one may in fact cause distortion when what you want to be doing is to identify the source of same.