6 ohm speakers on 4 / 8 ohm taps?

[justinis]

I have a tube amplifier with 4 and 8 ohm taps. I'm considering some 6 ohm speakers but I have some questions:

1. Which tap should I use? I assume the 4 ohm tap will cause less distortion because it will load the transformers less? But I will need more power to achieve the same level of volume?

2. Will speaker efficiency rating be affected?

Thanks for your advice!

Last edited by justinis on October 18th, 2016, 1:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Roscoe Primrose]

They'll both work fine. It's gonna be a case by case basis for any given amp/speaker pairing as to which one sounds better, that's why you have ears

Roscoe

[justinis]

I knew these things would come in handy!

[TubeDriver]

You can give safely give both taps a shot but in general you might have best luck using the taps that the transformer designer intended.

You might get reduced distortion by using the 4 ohm taps with 8 ohm speaker but at the cost of chopping off half of the transformers inductance.

[justinis]

Crap, I just realized I put "8 ohm" in my original post when I meant "6 ohm!" I will change it so this question actually makes sense. Sorry!

[Roscoe Primrose]

Yeah, I noticed, but I assumed it was a typo since you put 6 ohms in the thread title...

Roscoe