You misunderstand the reason for power. It has little or nothing to do with volume. There are several reasons why a comsumer might want to go with a higher powered amp.
1) Certain speakers depending on their efficiency require large amounts of power to work as they are designed. A very efficient speaker can run with very low power. Some of the favorite amps right now put out only a couple of WPC. These low powered amps though cannot drive most speakers to the satisfaction of the speaker owner.
2) More powerful amps are more able to reproduce difficult musical passages because of the amount of power the are able to store. For example; if the listener is playing a recording with quiet strings and suddenly a portion comes along with lots of brass or drums played much louder a low powered amp will not have the reserve to 'accurately' reproduce the passage.
I use a 4 ohm speaker, my amp is capable of 400 WPC into a 4 ohm load. I have never turned up the volume of the pre-amp over half way. For sheer volume I have no need for this amount of power. For the enjoyment of the music I want an amp with the kind of power that will reproduce the details of portion I am hearing. So the issue remains, quality rather than quantity is what the average buyer is seeking.
1) Certain speakers depending on their efficiency require large amounts of power to work as they are designed. A very efficient speaker can run with very low power. Some of the favorite amps right now put out only a couple of WPC. These low powered amps though cannot drive most speakers to the satisfaction of the speaker owner.
2) More powerful amps are more able to reproduce difficult musical passages because of the amount of power the are able to store. For example; if the listener is playing a recording with quiet strings and suddenly a portion comes along with lots of brass or drums played much louder a low powered amp will not have the reserve to 'accurately' reproduce the passage.
I use a 4 ohm speaker, my amp is capable of 400 WPC into a 4 ohm load. I have never turned up the volume of the pre-amp over half way. For sheer volume I have no need for this amount of power. For the enjoyment of the music I want an amp with the kind of power that will reproduce the details of portion I am hearing. So the issue remains, quality rather than quantity is what the average buyer is seeking.