This is quite normal. You are hearing either tweeter compression or tweeter ringing or IMD distortion from the amp driving your speakers or compressed pop music. It is all too common - things sound great at modest levels (as almost all consumer designs do and then fall apart at high levels). Compressed pop music is all too common - so you need to eliminate a large percentage of popular music if you expect to be able to crank it without any harshness at all -see this.
Bear in mind, most consumer designs are not particularly intended to play dynamically and loud - they are mostly designed to sound best at modest levels while looking really great (costly cabinetry and finishes) - consider a pro speaker for you next upgrade -ugly but may get you what you desire.
Light weight materials will ring like a bell (for example metal or ceramic) - the ringing has nothing to do with the music so it is rather intrusive and gives you an etched sound. It can be misinterpreted as detail at low levels much in the way a hypercompressed modern pop CD sounds good at low levels and harsh when you crank it. Like a bell - ringing is worse when you drive the tweeter harder - at high levels it is constantly ringing. The diamond tweeter is perhaps the only exception - it has a resonance well outside the audible band. If you select a pro speaker then chances are much higher that they have chosen a tweeter that performs better at higher levels.
As you crank it your speaker amplifier is being asked to send AMPS of current to the woofers - at the same time it is sending milli-amps (thousandths of an amp) signals to the tweeter. Hardly surprising that this results in loads of audible IMD distortion coming out the tweeter. The amp is trying to feed 'niagara falls' for the kick drum and at the same time provide syringe-like accurate volumes to the tiny tweeter. Active amplification of each speaker driver with a separate amplifier will solve this issue. Funnily enough, most pro speakers are actively amplified...
Bear in mind, most consumer designs are not particularly intended to play dynamically and loud - they are mostly designed to sound best at modest levels while looking really great (costly cabinetry and finishes) - consider a pro speaker for you next upgrade -ugly but may get you what you desire.
Light weight materials will ring like a bell (for example metal or ceramic) - the ringing has nothing to do with the music so it is rather intrusive and gives you an etched sound. It can be misinterpreted as detail at low levels much in the way a hypercompressed modern pop CD sounds good at low levels and harsh when you crank it. Like a bell - ringing is worse when you drive the tweeter harder - at high levels it is constantly ringing. The diamond tweeter is perhaps the only exception - it has a resonance well outside the audible band. If you select a pro speaker then chances are much higher that they have chosen a tweeter that performs better at higher levels.
As you crank it your speaker amplifier is being asked to send AMPS of current to the woofers - at the same time it is sending milli-amps (thousandths of an amp) signals to the tweeter. Hardly surprising that this results in loads of audible IMD distortion coming out the tweeter. The amp is trying to feed 'niagara falls' for the kick drum and at the same time provide syringe-like accurate volumes to the tiny tweeter. Active amplification of each speaker driver with a separate amplifier will solve this issue. Funnily enough, most pro speakers are actively amplified...