I would agree that wattage ratings are a very poor indicator of the quality or even the level of sound you can expect. A family member has Martin Logan electrostats (notoriously inefficient) pushed by a 200 watt per channel Macintosh stereo receiver. There are 2 big meters showing the output power on the front panel, and even when the sound is what I consider "loud enough" they rarely indicate much over 1 watt.