Electromagnetic-acoustic transducers (EMATs) are attractive for non-destructive inspections because direct contact with the specimen under test is not required. This advantage comes at a high cost in sensitivity and therefore it is important to optimise every aspect of an EMAT. The signal strength produced by EMATs is in part determined by the coil impedance regardless of the transduction mechanism (e.g. Lorentz force, magnetostriction, etc.). There is very little literature on how to select the coil impedance that maximises the wave intensity; this paper addresses that gap. A transformer circuit is used to model the interaction between the EMAT coil and the eddy currents that are generated beneath the coil in the conducting specimen. Expressions for the coil impedances that satisfy the maximum efficiency and maximum power transfer conditions on transmission are presented. To support this analysis, a tunable coil that consists of stacked identical thin layers independently accessed is used so that the coil inductance can be modified while leaving the radiation pattern of the EMAT unaffected.