You are not risking any damage.
Broadly speaking, most amps will produce the greatest amount of power into a matched load, 8 ohm tap to 8 ohm speaker, 16 ohm tap to 16 ohm speaker. But the amount of power loss into an unmatched load, such as the one you are speaking of, is usually not too great. In fact, you might not hear it at all.
What you may very well be able to hear is that the output impedance decreases as you go to lower impedance taps, so a 4 ohm tap has a lower output impedance than an 8 ohm tap. The ratio of this to the load is the damping factor and effects the performance of the woofer. But subjectively, you may prefer less damping, or more damping, depending on your system architecture, room and tastes. So the easiest thing to say is that what sounds right to you is the right thing to do.
Finally, there is a switch on the 16 ohm tap, so you have the sound of an extra set of switch contacts on that tap. Again though, I don't imagine that will be a sonic deal breaker.
Hope this helps.
Broadly speaking, most amps will produce the greatest amount of power into a matched load, 8 ohm tap to 8 ohm speaker, 16 ohm tap to 16 ohm speaker. But the amount of power loss into an unmatched load, such as the one you are speaking of, is usually not too great. In fact, you might not hear it at all.
What you may very well be able to hear is that the output impedance decreases as you go to lower impedance taps, so a 4 ohm tap has a lower output impedance than an 8 ohm tap. The ratio of this to the load is the damping factor and effects the performance of the woofer. But subjectively, you may prefer less damping, or more damping, depending on your system architecture, room and tastes. So the easiest thing to say is that what sounds right to you is the right thing to do.
Finally, there is a switch on the 16 ohm tap, so you have the sound of an extra set of switch contacts on that tap. Again though, I don't imagine that will be a sonic deal breaker.
Hope this helps.