Understanding impedence matching

This is so cool. I'm all over google trying to make sense out of what you good people are saying. It's slow, it's slow. Clueless, you say the point about impedence is that I need to figure out what the goal is, transferring voltage or current. Can you elaborate on this? How do you tell what the goal should be?

I am not even going to touch all the other questions I have - I'll keep reading around and try to learn a little more about the basics.

Many thanks to you all. Happy listening. Chuck

Chuck --
investing a little time in understanding Ohm's law will take you a long way towards understanding these issues. It's a bit like learning a language: in the beginning it feels daunting and impossible and then, suddenly, you loosen up & speak the language... you've acquired the "knowledge" as it were.

OK, you may not be ready to design your own amps, etc -- but, as Clueless (and not a physicist:)) notes,

if folks understood ...(that)... (and a little RLC) about 3/4 of the magic and synergy would disappear from the wires used in audio

However, the magic of matching devices into a system would appear.

Try this link, too. It's a short introduction to electricity & components.
It can be fascinating!

A couple of practical points specific to your components: since your pre has an output impedence of 800 ohms, using the 1:10 rule your power amp should have an input impedence of at least 8k, which is easy to find. (My Alephs, for example, have an unusually very low input impedence of 10k ohms.) Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, use of a tube amp with a high output impedence (let's say above 1 ohm) WILL couple with your speakers' variable impedence differently as a function of frequency, resulting in the somewhat unpredictable trampolining of its freq response that can make tube amps so much fun (!?). However, a 6ohm speaker load min is pretty high, so MOST tube amps will show minimal timbral distortion. Again, think of the varying load response the amp sees as it's 1 ohm impedence meets a 6-20 ohm load across 30-20kHz window. (Yes, study ohm's law.) Then imagine what happens with a more common lower impedence load, often varying down to impedence minima of 2-3 ohms!
There can then easily be a 10x change in "load" across the frequency band, severely modulating the response. Usually the upper bass and mids get plumped up, the highs rolled off. Only works well a small percentage of the time since it's such a wild crapshoot. So even though your speaker is relatively amp friendly I'd chase an amp with a low output impedence to maximize your odds of a reasonably flat frequency response without having to tweak the hell out of your room, or other consequent bandaids. Good luck.

If the circuitry is stable and well designed, the source output impedance should match that of the load input impedance. If the load contains a high level of reactance, especially at sharp phase angles, the source output impedance should be measurably lower than that of the load input impedance. If our audio gear was designed properly, we wouldn't be using a 1 / 10 ratio or anything close to that.

The only company that i've ever seen that offers a product line that takes advantage of such design features would be Sierra Audio ( i "think" it was them ). Jud Barber of Joule Electra has also made comments similar to this, but not to the point of promoting matching input / output impedances. Sean
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Thanks everyone. I have begun my inquiry into Ohm's law and its implications. I've gotten the E=IR concept down, but as to the implications, well I gotta keep studying. But since there is some conviction from you that understanding this does, in fact, help demystify the process, I am eager to learn.

Again, my thanks. The more I explore the web, the more amazed I am by its power to connect strangers.