What's with 4 ohm speakers?

Some misinformation here:

They're not hard to drive if you have a good amp. Also, 4 ohms is an average.

4 ohms is not an average. Plus, you can see in the specs of all amps that its not a good thing. No matter what amp you have, the distortion will be higher driving 4 ohms. And usually its the kind of distortion you can easily hear- an amp driving 4 ohms will be harsher and less detailed than if it were driving 8 or 16 ohms.

Sensitivity.

Take a typical "8 ohm" midwoofer and double them up in parallel and you get 6 dB more. Realistically, more like 3.5 to 4 dB but also drops impedance by half. Problem is that impedance varies with frequency and the same midwoofer will have a minimum impedance, usually around 200 Hz. Some more than others.

Putting two 8 ohm speakers in parallel gets you 4 ohms, with 3, not 6 db increase in sensitivity. However the actual efficiency will be found to not have changed. It is important not to confuse efficiency, which is the actual watts that make a speaker move, as opposed to sensitivity, which has to do with the voltage on the speaker at the time. If you have 2.83 volts into the speaker and its 8 ohms, the power is 1 watt, IOW they are the same. But into 4 ohms that 2.83 volts is 2 watts- 3 db 'more'. Its not really more at all, what is happening is your amp is being asked to double its power.

Its important to understand this distinction! Not all amps double power (tube amps for example). Yet such amps can sound quite musical. Regardless in all cases, as stated earlier, amps do sound better (smoother, more detailed) driving higher impedances.

Put simply, if sound quality is your goal, your amplifier investment dollar will be best served by a speaker of 8 ohms or more, all other things being equal (and regardless of the amplifier technology). If OTOH sound *pressure* is your goal than you have a small (3db) argument for going with a 4 ohm speaker.

I don't know the answer to the OP's question but I do wonder if it has something to do with cost. Take a 4 ohm and an 8 ohm version of the same driver unit: Is it less expensive to manufacture the 4 ohm version?

Four ohm versions are usually more sensitive. A good amplifier properly mated to a 4 ohm speaker will usually deliver more output than it would into an 8 ohm load. With more output, you can play louder with less distortion and more headroom.

Well, I guess I should have checked the thread again before posting because Atmasphere practically wrote just the opposite and I trust his knowledge about such things far more than mine. He didn't answer the OP's question, though, so somewhere along the value chain, I still wonder if it has something to do with cost.

It's easier to design a speakers with a steady low impedance than a steady high impedance, something that some amps seem to have an easier time with. Historically there have been more speakers that can produce wave form fidelity with a lower impedance than a higher impedance. IME, I typically prefer systems that have speakers with a low impedance rather than a high impedance, YMMV.

It's easier to design a speakers with a steady low impedance than a steady high impedance, something that some amps seem to have an easier time with. Historically there have been more speakers that can produce wave form fidelity with a lower impedance than a higher impedance.

This is entirely false, plain and simple.

To answer the OP question, I suspect the reason is that many designers don't know how amplifiers work, so we often see crazy loads that are 'hard' to drive.

Folks, there is a reason such speakers are considered hard to drive- the amp has to work harder to do the job. You can always see it in the specs of any amplifier- the harder you make it work, the more distortion it makes. Unfortunately the distortion we are talking about is the kind that makes a system harsher and brighter- the odd ordered harmonics, to which the human ear/brain system is very sensitive.

Part of the problem is that speaker designers often confuse Sensitivity with Efficiency. I can point to examples if anyone is interested. You don't get something for nothing in this world. In electronics, this idea is known as the Law of Energy Conservation, or Kirchoff's Law.

But many speaker designers don't understand this. They think that if they put two drivers in parallel, that the speaker gets easier to drive (sensitivity increases). It does not! It gets *harder* to drive, and the amount of power to make it play a certain sound pressure does not change at all!

If lowering the impedance was actually helpful, why not 1 ohm instead of four? Then the sensitivity would be increased by 9 db! Nearly a 10:1 improvement... but of course that would violate Kirchoff's Law. If you are able to violate Kirchoff's Law, FWIW, you will have created a Free Energy Device which, as far as we know, does not exist.

Yet many speaker designers persist in trying to do exactly that, and many audiophiles that don't understand how this works (its really just math when you boil it down, FWIW) follow along in the fantasy.

So here is the bottom line: higher impedance speakers cause amps to make less distortion (smoother, more detailed). Increasing the Sensitivity of a speaker by decreasing its impedance does not affect Efficiency, but it does make the speaker harder to drive (amp will sound harsher, less detailed).

Put another way: If Sound *quality* is your goal, your amplifier investment dollar will be best served by a speaker of higher impedance, all other things being equal. If sound **pressure** is your goal and you have a transistor amp up to the task, then there is an argument for lower impedances.