just wondering about ohms

dave shepard

I was just wondering about the ohms rating on speakers and what they mean. I know that the reciever and speakers should match but does a 4ohms speaker sound better then a 6/8 ohms speaker?


Just wondering
Dave

ncw

Here's what I think: producing sound accurately is the primary design goal. The ohmic value only has to be 4 - 8 ohms on the average over the speaker's sound output range.

Speaker's ohm is a combination of inductance (like the speaker coil without pure resistance), and resistance (like resistance to current flow). What really matter's is the speaker's capacity to produce sound, and that depends on the motor (the copper coil moving back and forth in a dense magnetic field.) Too much resistance to current flow can mean a lot of heat generated when playing very loud. Thus a good speaker should have low resistance to current flow and be able to produce sound evenly for all tones. Because speaker ohms is a combination of resistance and inductance, a good speaker does not always have low ohmic value, even though the resistance to current flow may be very small.