I have a 84 convertible. It currently have a retro stereo, and an alpine 200 watt amp, a JBL subwoofer under the passenger seat, and all JBL speakers.

I have four 6.5 inch JBL speakers in the doors and rear panels. I have two 3.5 JBL's in the dash and I had removed the stock amp and used that space to put a plate I made with two 3/4 inch JBL tweeters. Plus the subwoofer under the seat.

Here's the issues, The amp I have isn't powerful enough for the speakers I'm running. I'm using JBL Stadiums. They are 2 ohms and they kick. According to the specs they can handle 225 watts. When I spoke to a tech at JBL to ask why my amp is always clipping and cutting out he said the speakers are rated to pull 100 watts and my amp can only push 45 RMS so I'm overworking the Alpine. He suggested a 400 watt amp that can push at least 95 watts RMS.

I ordered a Clarion XR5420 Class D 4-Channel 400W from Amazon. Should have it in a few days. I'm hoping to get better performance out of it. But I'm actually wondering if an 800 watt amp would be better with these speakers.

I currently have 8 actual speakers, not counting the subwoofer which is independently powered. The Clarion, just like the Alpine is a 4 channel amp. I wired it up with my four 6 inch speakers running of the Alpines 4 channels, and I wired the 3.5's and the tweeters to the head units front and rear channels. At the time it was the best idea I had. However I have no real control of the dashboard speakers since the AMP bypasses all controls. I cant fade and balance them and they aren't very loud. In fact I was thinking the tweeters weren't working for awhile until I had the dash cover off last summer and I pulled the plate and put the tweeters to my ear and they are functioning, but barely. Same thing with the 3.5's. I can put my fingers on the dash and feel it vibrate, but I can barely hear the front speakers. Considering the head unit is 300 watts, I assume that was plenty of wattage for the small speakers, but nope.

Prior to this setup, the stereo shop that set up the alpine for my maybe 4 summers ago had the front door speakers daisy-chained to the 3.5's and the result was opposite. At that time I was getting 90% of my sound from the dash and the door speakers were doing nothing.

Is there any wiring suggestion to get good use out of all 8 speakers? I feel I'll have the same condition with the Clarion as for how the dash speakers function bypassed from the amp, if I hard wire them to the head unit.

The 3.5's and much smaller and handle much less wattage than the Stadiums. I don't want to blow them out, I just would like to know they function at their best capacity.