Can "clipped" distorted sound damage speakers, at lower volumes?

[Mike Shiva]

Hello. A question about speakers. This has me stumped.

I listen to some "Noise"-genre music, both on my high-quality computer
speakers, and my hi-fi stereo speakers.

Alot of this music is *recorded* distorted, with lotsa clipping. In
other words, if I'm playing it with WinAmp, the meter shows tons of
clipping, and the music itself is audibly clipped and distorted.

Can this type of sound/music cause damage to speakers, if played at a
moderate volume? I never play it too loud.

This is confusing, because I've heard rumors that, even at reasonable
volumes, music which was RECORDED distorted is bad for the speakers
and can cause damage over time. I would think that the speakers
wouldn't mind, since they can't differentiate between a wave
reproducing a distorted sound, and one reproducin a non-distored
sound, they just reproduce what the waveform represents.

But I'm concerned that the rumor is true.

A related question - let's assume my amp/speaker combo can perform up
to volume level 8, without any distortion at all, neither amp nor
speaker distortion. Playing well-recorded music, say a Coltrane tune.

Does this mean that I can also play a song filled with distortion and
clipping, at the same audible sound level? Without hurting the
speakers?

Any advice would be much appreciated.

-Mike

[David Wood]

No, so long as what you're hearing is distorion in the actual recording
and not amp distortion or overpowered speaker distortion, you are fine.