Yeah you're probably right, 6 ohms may not be the sweet spot. I've never heard it running on anything other than my 8ohm speakers so i wouldn;t know how changing the impedance affects the sound quality.
Well I will tell you this; I am not trying to turn this into a business or anything here. What I am going to do is, get one set made up and try them out in my setup. If Paul's assumption that 12ohms might be the sweet spot for sound quality, I think I will hear it. My speakers are 6ohms nominal and drop to 3.2ohms. If raising the impedance does improve sound quality, I'm going to be telling everyone with digital amps so they can join in as well. No need to hoarde the sound improvements all to myself. This is an easy transformer to make I think and should be relatively inexpensive for all of us (more so if we get a group buy).
I was erroneously thinking that if the amplifier saw a 6ohm load instead of an 8 ohm, it would cause the amp to drive the speakers with more current, thereby not necessitating such a high setting of the volume knob.
Actually your thinking is spot on really (except the part about the setting of the volume). The point I think you are missing though is, we're NOT trying to force our amps to push more current. That is what is making them strain so hard and thus making them sound edgy, strident or harsh at times. They're just not designed to deliver gobs of current. Hence the solution I'm proposing; stop forcing the amps to deliver current levels they can't fulfill, and get them working on a load they CAN handle.
Your speakers will still get the power; just in the form of voltage, not current. In fact, raising the impedeance I think gives the amp more damping power. Not sure how much and all but that also means a bit more control down low I think. Some engineer please jump in here and help me out cuz now I'm just spouting off.
Then i thought well if the volume is at -25db rather than -15db but the amp pushing more current, maybe it would sound better while still outputting about the same sound pressure levels.
That is good thinking(sort of) but again we're running into the problem of forcing our amps to do something they weren't inherently designed for; large current delivery. Your speakers sensitivity is not going to change so the slight increase in current delivery isn't going to allow you to drop the volume level so much as you think. The change in current delivery from 8ohms to 6ohms won't get you from -15 on the volume dial to -25.
Oh to answer your question the speakers I was considering were Axiom M80s.
But I don't want to run the amp out of its recommended spec range so i will forgoe the m60s for some other higher impedance model such as 6 or 8.
Actually, that model is a very good candidate for this amp. The rating that should get your attention more than the 4ohm impedance (which is what we're talking about fixing here) is the sensitivity; 91dB (they say 95dB in room). That's pretty damn good! That just means you won't need as much power as you think.
-1 watt, you will get 91dB at one meter from the speaker (but remember with every doubling of distance from the speaker you will lose 6dB...room gain will boost that back up too so it's not a total loss of 6dB entirely).
-2 watts, you will get 94dB levels at 1 meter
-4 watts will get you 97dB at 1 meter
-8watts will be 100dB
-16watts will be 103dB
-32watts will be 106dB
-64watts will be 109dB (at 4meters that will be 97dB which is LOUD).
If you sit between 2-4meters, you are in great shape with these two combined. I would just get the transformer to make sure you aren't overdriving the amp by forcing it to deliver more current than it can handle.
Since the amp is rated for a bit over 64 watts you will still have some head room to play with there.
Though after listening to some new material today i'm kind of liking my speakers again, it all just sounds so good maybe I shouldn't give up a good thing for the possiblility of better. Like they say you don't know what you got till it's gone.
Well if you like what you have now, then you should be fine...but, you can always do this:
Get the M80's and I'll plan to get you the transformers at the same time. This way you can listen to the combination and see if it is better than your current speaker setup. If not, then you are out $15 for shipping the Transformers to the next fellow in line, and whatever shipping costs are for returning the M80's. If you buy them used, then you can always turn around and sell them here, eBay or Audiogon.
just some ideas.
By the way, what are your current speakers?
