Question on whether I hooked my speakers up correctly or not (One of them is now blown). I ask this because the manufacturer is sending a replacement, but if this is my fault I won't accept it. I want to make certain that this is a defect.

I blew one of my aura bass shaker pro speakers that is supposed to be capable of handling 50 watts. I want to know if I screwed something up which caused it to get more than 50 watts.

I have a Sony HTIB that has a sub output. I am not using the sub that came with the HTIB, I am using a BIC America 475 watt front facing sub. It has it's own internal amplifier and from what I understand, it only uses that power for that subwoofer regardless of what I hook up to it. The Sony receiver does not use RCA wires, it uses wires that have a positive and neg. So from the receiver, I have those wires going to my BIC America Sub but I have it going into the right channel of the sub's input. Then I tied the left channel of the sub's input to the right with additional speaker wires just so it goes from the right input to the left on both positive and neg. Then on the output from that subwoofer for both right and left channel (not tied together, seperate positive and neg for each channel), I have it going to a 100 watt 2 channel amp that is not bridged. It is 50 watts per channel. From that amp, I have 2 aura bass shaker pro speakers hooked up, one on the right channel, one for the left channel.

My sony receiver has a volume that goes up to 32 (maybe 33). I had it turned up to 24. The 475 subwoofer has the volume from 0-10. I had it on 5. The amp has a volume from 0-10. I had it on 10.

At these levels, the Aura bass shaker pro bottom out pretty badly. I did not realize it until after I blew one of them, but after blowing it I have been paying attention and I definitely hear it so I have turned the amp down to 6 and that seems fine. The Aura Bass shakers respond to the volume on the Sony receiver being turned up, and/or the 100 watt 2 channel amp being turned up. They do not respond to the BIC america volume being turned up and I have even turned it off completely and they still work fine.

Did I hook it up wrong so it is somehow getting more than 50 watts per channel? I don't understand why they bottom out and even one blew out when I only have the Sony Receiver at less than full power? Am I not including the watts from the Sony Receiver and that is why? It is a 1000 watt HTIB over 5 channels, but on it's own it barely, and I mean barely powered the aura bass shakers. I could not even feel them.