"Watts" Versus "Current"

The white papers by Atma-sphere, who sometimes posts on the forum, can be found here. You want the third and the fourth.

Depends on the speakers.

Both are important depending on the speaker.

Watts will determine how loud the speakers will go cleanly.

Current will determine how balanced top to bottom the sound is on speakers whose impedance loads vary greatly at different frequencies, particularly at lower to moderate listening volumes.

In my case, with large Ohm Walsh 5 speakers, I swapped a 360 w/ch but low current Carver amp for a 120w/ch Musical Fidelity that delivers a lot more current/watt for this reason with very positive results.

The switch also produced similar positive results with my Dynaudio Contours.

Both Dyns and OHMs like lots of power AND current.

Watts = Current * Voltage

Watts = Power = W
Current = Amps = A (current is similar to water flow)
Voltage = Volts = V (voltage is similar to water pressure)

So you can see that both current and voltage are important in making up a power/watts rating. A good example you may be familiar with is tube vs solid state amps. Tubes are voltage driven devices. They operate at low current but high voltage and control/amplify it easily. Transistors operate at low voltages but control/amplify current easily. So you can see that to get 1W you can have 1000V * .001A or .1A * 10V

As Mapman says, which is better depends on your speakers. Everything above is in general, and in general, woofers sound better with lots of current. So SS is generally considered a better choice over a tube amp with a similar rating. Tweeters don't use much current so they tend to sound better with tube amps. And yes, midranges are in the middle so it's your choice.

Now marketers say just about anything and everything so you just have to take all that with a grain of salt. It's really not which is better (wattage based on high voltage or high current), it's which sounds better in your system to you.