... To me it looks like the 6.6kΩ ... has much less travel in reference to cutoff. ... can any one tell me any good reason ... that these power amps are operating at that cramped as heck looking area on the right side of the graph ...
The plotter is showing you the loadline of, let's say, the "Push Tube."
Where the "Push Tube" is cramped & about to shut off, the "Pull Tube" is conducting & getting ready to pass double-current when the "Push Tube" shuts off.
The Princeton Reverb and Deluxe Reverb are push-pull Class A
B amps: each side of the power section shuts off for a time if you push the power section hard enough.
Check out "Composite Loadlines" in
RDH4 (pages 575, 583).
... The reported effects of folk putting a Deluxe Reverb output transformer into a Princeton Reverb circuit is that it is a) louder b) cleaner c) low end gets tighter.
... 8.5kΩ tranny is the stock Princeton, 6.6kΩ is the Deluxe 'upgrade' tranny. ... the 6.6kΩ ... does not say to me 'this is a cleaner loadline' (effect b above), nor does it say to me 'this is a loadline more apt and capable of swinging' (effect a, noted above). ...
The shut-off side of the loadline doesn't matter, because the other output use is doing the work (established above). So let's look for how far
the other side of the loadline goes.
There is a vertical line for "50v" on the 6V6 plate of each set of curves, and it is near-enough to the maximum plate current achieved when the 6V6 is fully driven.
8.5kΩ loadline seems to reach "50v" at 168mA of (peak) plate current.
6.6kΩ loadline seems to reach "50v" near 220mA of (peak) plate current.
Plate Voltage in each case seems to be around 410v (the red dot on the loadline).
Plate Voltage Change is 410v - 50v = 360v
We can use the info above to estimate RMS Power Output (RDH4 page 584):
RMS Power = (Peak Current x Plate-Volts-Change) / 2
8.5kΩ --> (0.168 A x 360v) / 2 = 30 watts -----> Seems optimistic for 6V6
6.6kΩ --> (0.22 A x 360v) / 2 = ~40 watts -----> Seems optimistic for 6V6
I think the loadline calculator estimates peak plate current will reach higher, and/or the tube will pull its plate voltage lower, than what real tubes exhibit.
15w from 8.5kΩ: 119mA through 8.5kΩ/4 ---> (0.119A
2 x 2125Ω) / 2 = 15w
22w from 6.6kΩ: 163mA through 6.6kΩ/4 ---> (0.163A
2 x 1650Ω) / 2 = 22w
While we might doubt the specifics of the calculator's output, it does show that the lower-impedance OT enables
higher Peak Plate Current, and so
higher Power Output for the same supply volts. There's "Louder" sorted.
Most people don't have a power-meter in their ears, so they turn up an amp to "some loudness in the room," and notice the amp seems less distorted than with the smaller, higher-impedance OT. There's "Cleaner" sorted.