I agree, the stock speakers suck, turn up the bass, down goes the clarity, then you have a loud noise you can't understand.
You are also correct when you say that wattage is not all that is needed. I have heard speakers that were clear and could produce over 100db on less than 15 watts of power. Here is an audiophiles comments RE wattage and speakers.
"wattage means jack when it comes to speakers and amps".
"wattage for speakers it comes down to senstivity@1w@1m. a good sensitive speaker will hit 92db@1w@1m. rest of the wattage gets dissipated as heat in both the amp and speaker"[FONT=verdana, geneva, lucida, arial, helvetica, sans-serif]
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It is sort of like having a car with 1,000HP, full power never gets used, but man is it fun to brag about how many HP you have. Same thing with music, high wattage never gets used to it fullest extent, but man is it fun to brag about how many watts you have. Better sound can be achieved with a great quality speaker and lower watts with more volume you ever need with less power drain.
I know this is just my humble opinion, but after being a sound man at several churches for over 35 years, installing and running several sound systems, I had to put it out there. [/FONT]