Red light usually means the amp is going into Protection Mode.
This is to keep the amp from basically starting a fire in your trunk/hatchback.

Since you said you downgraded quite significantly, you can only expect that your overall output will also be downgraded as well.

Your best bet is to keep your gains on your amp (bass boost and level, this all depends on what you have provided on your amp) as low as possible and just spend a lot of time fine tuning your sound system till you get to a point where you can make it loud when you want to but listen to it as clear as possible when you dont.

Until you can get better equipment, understand that you're going to have to live with the sacrifice of cheaper equipment.

Once you do decide to upgrade, click back in here and ask around and go to the sound meets we have every 2nd saturday of every month! Come by now if you want to, it doesnt matter if you have a good system or not, we can even try to help you get this one a little louder.

Asking questions is never stupid and most of us are here to help each other out.

Good luck to you sir and hope to meet you at Toby's shop meets one of these days