Ohms?


Can some please explain speaker ohms to me? As I understand it a speaker come rated at a particular ohm-lets say 8. I understand the lower the number the more efficent is??? What I am having trouble with is the minimum rating. Does the ohm rating change on a speaker? Help!!!
vongwinner
Jim, I agree with your overall explaination...but....Many entry level audiophiles want to understand what are the pertinent specifications, of each component that they are considering for purchace. For an entry level audiophile to compare the "ohm" specifications of different speakers, and make a determination to which might be best for their modern amp, is darn near rediculous. Your explaination of the impedance curve of a speaker, and its potential implication on the amplifier chioce will intimidate the hell out of any newcomer to audio. Again, for those of you out there that are studying all of these "important" specifications, you don't have to become an undergrad in the understanding of electrical resistance (read: "ohms"), in order to choose good sounding electronics for your speakers. Don't let all of the above aforementioned explaninations intimidate you. They are just part of the "hobby". We seasoned audiophiles like to dig down deep into the electrical theories, even if they are not really needed in our purchace decisions.
I agree with you in general. But when I was an audio pup, I decided that I really liked those flat speakers with the ribbons on them. I'm not a technical person and picked up what was relevant along the way out of necessity. (Boy, did I make some mistakes.) Whe you get down to it, impedance curves (simply minimun and maximum) are not too complicated and might help in choosing an amp for speakers that don't have coventional loads. And today this doesn't seem to be limited to ribbons and electrostatics. But I agree that most people will go with speakers for which impedance swing is not an issue. No harm, no foul. Have a good one.
Thanks to all I had every thing backwards which was leading to much confusion! For me as a beginer the more info the better-I figure if I don't understand I just have more reading to do!!! Thanks Again Thanks to every one!!
What is the old analogy? Please correct me if I am wrong. Electricity is like a water faucet. Volts is the resevoir, amps are the amount of water coming out of the faucet, watts is the pressure and ohms is the lever that turns it on to full blast or off and everything inbetween. Is that right? Its been a while.
Close, I will give you an A for your effort. Try this: Voltage is the pressure at which the water is being pushed, current is the amount of water of water and resistance is the size of the pipe. Or maybe I am wrong?? :-)