Most high-quality loudspeakers are 4-Ohms

johnk- could you please explain why drivers with 16ohm rdc is superior to 4 ohms? in sIMILAR conctruction they have only thinner wire used at former and thus higher Le(which is not good IMHO) in passive implementation it will fail to 4 ohms drivers which can use lower resistanse coils. the only thing which cna be stated that most amps (even those which cna handle 1ohm load) will have more discortions at 1-3ohms than 8ohms.

I have designe dmore than 80 diferet speakers models with variuos impadances, cmomonly i can say that 10-20ohms speakers are more calm and smoother souding while 3-4ohms are more dynamic and have "grip" in LF(i compare similar designs)

Elviukai,

WHat you said regarding relative sound of speakers with various impedances intuitively sounds right to me.

So then can it practically be said which is higher quality? I do not think so. Different flavors will appeal to different people.

The higher impedance speakers would seem to have less potential to offend, but perhaps are also harder to get a big thrill (in terms of dynamics) out of?

>>12-02-09: Unsound
Most ss amps aren't at their best into 16 Ohms.<<

That might not be the case.

I seem to recall in a previous thread Ralph Karsten saying that all amps, power output notwithstanding, perform better with higher impedance loads.

Maybe Ralph can jump in here and clarify.

Bill, I suspect that at higher impedances ss amps might be able to sustain a higher bias longer, but at the cost of reduced ultimate power. I suspect that the speakers sensitivity coupled with room size and ultimate volume sought would of have to be added to the equation. Still, I think 16 Ohms in most cases would not be the best load for most ss amps.

A solid state amp will put out less power maximum power into a 16 ohm load, which of course is an issue if the amp may be pushed into clipping. But if the amp will produce adequate headroom into a high impedance load, in my opinion there's a valid argument in favor of relatively high impedance speakers.

If you look at the distortion curves published by Stereophile at 8, 4 and 2 ohms, you will see that below the onset of clipping the distortion is usually lower into a high impedance load. Due to a psychoacoustic phenomenon called "masking" the distortion at low power levels is of considerably greater subjective consequence than distortion at high power levels, so you want to focus on the low-power end of the distortion curves (again assuming you're not driving the amp into clipping). Personally I'd like to see what's happening down at the milliwatt level but that information isn't given.

Let me just comment that THD measurements are not reliable indicators of relative sound quality from one amp to another, as design choices that minimize THD are often counter-productive from a subjective standpoint (small amounts of high, odd-order distortion are far more audible and objectionable to the ear than are very large amounts of second harmonic distortion; in other words, the industry is meauring with the wrong yardstick). But THD measurements made on the same amplifier under different load conditions are reliable indicators of relative sound quality because they tell us how close to ideal that amp's performance is into that load.