Darkmoebius, just for the record, I stated that about **all** amplifiers, tube *or* transistor!
To restate: If your goal is sound quality, your investment in your amplifier will be best served by a higher impedance speaker (8 or preferably 16 ohm), all other things being equal. If your goal is sound pressure and you have a transistor amplifier, that goal will be better served by a lower impedance speaker such as 4 ohms.
All tube amplifiers are challenged by 4 ohm loads regardless of the technology of the tube amplifier. In the case of a transformer coupled amplifier, you often loose an octave of low frequency bandwidth going to the four ohm tap, and distortion increases, usually along with a slight loss in power.
People often talk about the ability of a transistor amplifier to double power, but if you already have found tubes to be preferable, then you also know that that ability has nothing to do with good sound, so long as you choose the right speaker. There really are two paradigms that tubes and transistors loosely fall into, and if you mix equipment from the different camps, you will get poor performance. See
http://www.atma-sphere.com/papers/paradigm_paper2.html
for more information.
To restate: If your goal is sound quality, your investment in your amplifier will be best served by a higher impedance speaker (8 or preferably 16 ohm), all other things being equal. If your goal is sound pressure and you have a transistor amplifier, that goal will be better served by a lower impedance speaker such as 4 ohms.
All tube amplifiers are challenged by 4 ohm loads regardless of the technology of the tube amplifier. In the case of a transformer coupled amplifier, you often loose an octave of low frequency bandwidth going to the four ohm tap, and distortion increases, usually along with a slight loss in power.
People often talk about the ability of a transistor amplifier to double power, but if you already have found tubes to be preferable, then you also know that that ability has nothing to do with good sound, so long as you choose the right speaker. There really are two paradigms that tubes and transistors loosely fall into, and if you mix equipment from the different camps, you will get poor performance. See
http://www.atma-sphere.com/papers/paradigm_paper2.html
for more information.