configure amp 4 or 8 ohm to drive 6 ohm speakers

I noted that despite the overall rating of 8 ohm impedance of my speakers, that the stated minimum was pretty low at 3.8. I tried the both 4 ohm and the 8 ohm taps anyway and liked what I heard with the 4 ohm tap. It made sense and my amps seem to be OK with it. Why else would they have a 4 ohm tap if it would damage the amp?

The impedance of those taps are not exact. Ask Cary what the actual impedance is on the outputs. It may be closer to 6 ohms than you think.

Rrog, I found one review online where the measured output imp with the 8 ohm tap was 4.4 @1khz. There was no measurement for the 4 ohm tap, maybe it would be around 2.2 or so.

Anyway, I've had 2 listening sessions since switching to the 4 ohm tap and midway through the 2nd I was convinced the soundstage was smaller and some dynamics were lost. OK, I'm no expert with these reviewer terms but to me it just didn't sounds as good. I powered the amp off and turned it on it's side, gee it's heavy, took off the bottom and switched it back to the 8 ohm tap. Just as I thought, I like the sound better.

It seems the more I read on the internet about audio equipment the less I know. In this case I believe I increased the damping factor when I tried the 4 ohm tap. It should have been basically doubling it, from 1.36 to 2.7. When I read certain articles this should have been goodness, and I should have found it superior. Why do I like the sound of the music better with a lower damping factor? And also, according so some things I have read either of these low damping factors is abysmal and should sound like crap. I suspect there are many complicated factors going on here and there may be others that outweighed the damping factor. And I do understand the impedance of my speakers may be all over the charts across the audio spectrum. I'll keep trying to learn this stuff. Nothing better to do.