Degraded sound issues

[amt]

I just broke out my IGC LM3875 after being parked on a shelf for a year. Previous to that, I had loaned it to a friend for several months and its probable that he ran it hard with 4 ohm speakers. The rails are 25v.

I find the sound far less articulate than I remember. Soundstage is not very good and there seems to be a lack of sparkle and loss of detail as compared to my other amps.

What ill effects will running these chips into protection mode/clipping repeatedly have? Do they slowly lose definition rather than just ceasing to function? Im going to replace the LM3875s regardless but Im wondering how careful one must be with these. Anyone else have this happen?

amt