Yeah, I'm headed for a major reinstall myself...

Let's just leave it at:

The guy on the phone said "Buy 5 get one free" and I couldn't turn him down

 

i just thought to mention that i don't think anyone else did, you said they run at 1000 peak and you were giving them 760. how do you know you were giving them 760 peak? you should go by RMS anyway, it's probably a more reliable figure adn it's easier to gauge since that's what your system is running.

i agree with all that, you definitely just powered them past distortion. you may not believe it, but you probably run them distorted most of the time. the human ear has a high tolerance for distortion, if you dont' believe me hook an oscilliscope up to your system. play it at what you think is distorted, then back down to where the distortion goes away. on the scope you'll definitely see more distortion still.

anyways, listen to hank. the reason you put it at about 3/4 volume to try and get max undistorted level (and not 100%) is because you need some room in case some songs are recorded at higher volumes or lower volumes.

don't know how your amp is set up, but my amp (and i've seen many others that are the same) has a gain control knob that is measured in volts (some have just like a reference number or something else), you ideally want to match the gain volts to the voltage output on your headunit. so if your preouts are 2 volts, set the gain to about 2 volts (but obviously make sure it sounds decent, tune it after setting it initially).

hank: can't wait to see (/hear) what you are putting in there.