stereo cuts out at volume

My '96 Tacoma radio will only get about half volume before it intermittently cuts out. It happens with either the radio or tape, and the thing kinda "pops" then goes silent for a half second before returning to normal for about 30-45 seconds until it cuts out again.

Any ideas as to the cause? Time for a new radio? new speakers???

Any help is greatly appreciated!!

Thanx in advance, Brad

 

Anybody....... any ideas? Is this a common thing for the first gens????

 

It could be a few different things. I would first pull the stereo and check impedance of all the speakers and make sure they are all around 4 ish. A blown speaker or shorted speaker wire will shut the stereo into protect like you are describing. If all that is good and you have good voltage to the stereo (not likely the problem) it's probably a bad deck.