How many watts does my sound system need to be?

If you want a high rated system out of the box without taking a second mortgage out on your house, I would recommend the Samsung Electronics HT-D6730W Home Theater System. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004OCN6ZG/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=g23-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B004OCN6ZG

Its kinda hard to answer without knowing the kind of sound systems you're talking about, I suggest getting one with a lot of watts and buying seperate speakers for it, you can find that in best buy, and you said the speakers were only 100 watts, actually 100 watts is a lot for the little speakers but if it's 100 watts for the sub woofer then yes I would consider getting another but then again it seems like you're not really into sound a lot so I recommend getting that because like I said 100 watts is a lot and if your not really into sound and acoustics then why bother paying more for something you have no idea if its worth it or not

Grumpy is correct with one exception. It's not 1 dB for doubling of power, it's 3 dB for doubling of power. Grumpy, you need to update this memory register in your brain;-) A "1000" Sony HTiB is a joke, it's probably about 50 ~ 100 watts at best. Don't pay so much attention to watts anyway, this is a measure of input power not a measure of performance output. To say an audio system is 1000 watts is like saying, "my car uses 1000 gallons of gas"... what the heck use is that information??? What did the car do with that 1000 gallons of gas? How many miles did it get out of that? What was the performance? An audio system should be rated based on its output capability not how much power it can deliver to the speakers. The less power required the better, not to save energy but rather because less power in a voice coil means less thermal swings and less distortion. Without proper measurement equipment and knowledge it's pretty much impossible to know a systems performance. Manufacturers simply do not provide the correct information. They have spent so many decades giving consumers all the wrong information that it would only confuse consumers to try to explain it to them. So as a consumer your only option is to do some leg work and get out and listen to some systems. My suggestion would be for you to start at an independent high end audio video store that carries systems ranging well into the 5 and even 6 figure dollar range. I know you don't plan to spend that much but you need a reference by which to judge less expensive systems. Go hear those super high end...cost as much as a house... systems so you know what's possible. Then go listen to systems in your budget range and compare those listening experiences with the high end. You're not going to match it, not even close but now having that reference you may find you can more easily detect differences among the more reasonably priced systems. You will have become a more experienced listener more able to make an informed decision based on your own listening test. mk