What is better 24 watt or 6 watt when thinking about purchasing an ipod docking speaker?

Some can barely manage a third of their claimed wattage. The reasons the manufacturers "get away" with this outright fraud are numerous, but the reality is most buyers don't listen all that loud. If you do and/or live a big house or apartment, or have speakers that demand oodles of juice, pony up and buy a serious receiver or better yet, a separates based system with a surround processor and heavyweight power amp.

One hundred watts per channel might not be enough, or 200 might be better, but an honest-to-God 300 watts might be what it takes to rock your world. Even if it's just the occasional party where you really want to blast the system, you need to buy enough power. When in doubt, go for more, and don't worry about damaging your speakers with too much power.

Fact is, more speakers get fried by underpowered amps than by uber power amps. In other words, you're more likely to "blow up" a speaker with a 25 watt amp than a 250 watter.