Sound quality having speakers with a higher impedance than the amp

Feferefe

Hi:

I want to know if the sound quality is affected if I connect a set of speakers with a higher impedance than the amp. I have a pair of Polk RTi10 (8 ohms) and planning to buy a Pioneer M10X ($200.00) that is 4 ohms to Bi-Amp the lows of the RTi10's. If someone have a better Amplifier (8 ohms) for $200 let me know.

Thanks,

TNRabbit

It doesn't quite work that way; Pioneer lists it like this on their site:

100 Watts Per Channel (Stereo): 4 ohms from 20-20,000 Hz with no more than .3% Total Harmonic Distortion

An amplifier can be rated by it's output into a given impedance (16 ohms, 8 ohms, 4 ohms, 2 ohms, 1 ohm). MOST are not able to produce into a 2 ohm load, and many inexpensive amps aren't stable into a constant 4 ohm load. Pioneer probably listed it this way as it is more impressive to say 100 watts into 4 ohms than what it will do into 8 ohms, probably along the line of 60 watts at best. It's safe into anything higher than 4 ohms, but just won't put out the same power at higher impedances, dropping as the impedance goes up.