why low impedance speakers?

I have heard it's a specmanship game. I 4 ohm speaker will be louder at 1 watt at 1 meter than a similar 8 ohm speaker. Some speaker designers feel pushed by the market to design at 4 ohms so they can compete in this spec game. I know to most A-goners that sounds pretty lame--we're more interested in what a speaker sounds like--not what specs it has--but more than a few speaker manufacturers have illuded to this as being the reason.

Many low impedance speakers (1 - 3 ohms) are in the panel family (ribbons and electrostatics). Apogee, Martin-Logan, Quad, and Maggies are probably the most well known. Unlike dynamic drivers (cones and domes), ribbons and panels are low impedance by the nature of their design. Just adding resistance to get the impedance higher degrades the sound quality and dissipates your amp’s power as heat. Using a high quality, high current amplifier is needed to control these drivers and produce the best possible sound.

Low Z speakers (4 ohm) can get up to twice the output power out of the same amp as Higher Z (8+ ohm) designs. They're helping you save some $, spending less, not more.

I have noticed that lower impedence speakers, while requiring more power, seem to also reflect the additional power in their presentation. They tend to be very poised and controled, and have explosive speed and agility. Higher impedence speakers seem to play a bit out of control by comparison, and don't have as good dynamics.

This is simply a pattern that I have noticed, and it could reflect the preferences of the designers of low vs high impedence speaker designers, OR, there might be some reason having to do with the electronics. I don't know.

To move the speaker cone and create sound, an electro-magnetic field is created to push and pull against the fixed magnet. This is done by forcing current through the voice coil with the voltage developed by the power amp. The lower the impedance of the coil, the more current will flow for a given voltage and the louder the speaker will play. Basically Bob's point above. Power amps are voltage amplifiers that adjust their output current within reason to meet the demands of the load. So if the impedance of the speaker is too high, it will take an extremely powerful amplifier to get any sound out of it. If the impedance is too low, the amp will run out of current and cause distortion and/or blow a fuse. 4 to 8 ohms is a good compromise.

The point about low impedance speakers being "more in control" is also well founded. As the magentic field expands and contracts, a counter voltage is created which also must fight against the impedance of the voice coil. A lower impedance coil will let this energy to dissipate more quickly, as will an amp with a lower output impedance. This is one reason solid state amps typically have tighter bass than tube amps, since the SS amp has a lower output impedance.