Do 4 ohms speaker sound better than 8 ohms?

No. In general, speaker impedance (which cannot really be defined by a single number) is completely uncorrelated with sound quality.

It's just different, not better.

I asked the same question once - why do some speaker designers choose 4 ohm drivers. The answer was not helpful.

In car audio, due to the low supply voltage, 4 ohm speakers make sense. But in the home audio environment, supply voltages are higher, and you are trying to drive many speakers from the same power supply.

Many receivers probably can't handle having all 4-ohm speakers hooked up and running at high volumes. I would think that your typical receiver will be happier with 8 ohm speakers. It will run cooler. Maybe even last longer.

If your amp/receiver can handle 4 ohm speakers, that increases the pool of speakers you can select from.

price really doesn't play into it either...

there are dirt cheap 4 ohm speakers, and VERY expensive 8 ohm speakers...

it's a design choice...

Check to see if the speaker is ported vs, sealed. I have noticed that many (if not most) sealed speakers systems are 4 ohm. Also, If they have very large drivers the nominal impedance will dip as those tend to require more power to drive. But the ohm rating doesn't correlate with SQ.

There is lot of variation in speaker impedance regardless of price. You can look at something like the Magnepan 1.7, which is 4 ohm and 86dB sensitive, and in the same price range you have the new Soul from Zu Audio, which is 16 ohm and 101dB sensitive. Both will sound, I'm sure, great, but have radically different designs which lead to different sensitivity measures. One isn't better or worse, they're just different.

16 ohm, wow. I don't remember seeing more than one other 16 ohm speaker, and that might have been some vintage model.

This was pretty standard in England until globalization of audio industry.

Quick question guys...I recently bought speakers with 6 ohms nominal impedance and 4 ohms minimal impedance. I am thinking of getting NAD's T747 receiver (60 watts).

Does the NAD have enough power to drive/support my speakers?

I don't think that the NAD is a good value, but it will work, yes.

I use an NAD T754 (similar specs to the T747) to drive a pair of 4 ohm speakers, usually at pretty high volume (it's in a bar) and have never had a problem.

Hello,
The size of your Room will have a large impact in terms of how well the T747 will work for you. In addition, depending on listening preferences and Sources, you might want more power.

What kind of Speakers are you using? As in addition to Ohms, there are things like the Sensitivity and Capacitive Phase Angle that might make using an AVR that excels with 4 Ohm loads more advantageous. However, more than likely, the T747 should be fine.

As to the original question, I am in complete agreement that it is a Design decision. Some Speaker Technologies are much less efficient and can dip below 1 Ohm. Such is the case with Martin Logan Electrostatic Models. It is only at the uppermost frequencies that the load is that low. And Speakers like the aforementioned Magneplanar which use Planar Ribbon or Quasi Planar Ribbons are comparably inefficient and low ohm. Moreover, Speakers such as Thiel which employ First Order Crossovers and are Time and Phase Aligned, present a challenging load.
Cheers,
AD