I bought some rockford component speakers and when i play them from half volume or higher, they crackle, they give off 40 rms, my cd player i bought gives off 50 watts x 4, i know its a bad time to think of this but could the cd player be underpowering the speakers, and if so would it be wise to just take them back and replace them with a lower modle?
your head unit only puts out about 11 watts per channel RMS. 50 watts x 4 is a peak rating, and you'll never get that from the head unit.
what you want to do is put some bass blockers on those speakers to keep them from bottoming out, and don't turn the ehad unit up past about half to three-quarters of full volume, as that's where distortion and clipping will start. If you want it louder, get better speakers, subs, and amplifiers.