Hi Freddi,
I design and repair tube product as well. I play with tube amps, and they are fun.
The reason most people you hear from use single ended and low power tube products on horn loaded systems is purely to get decent volume levels out at lower distortion. As you are well aware, distortion in a single ended anything goes up rapidly with power output. The same for P-P tube, but not as quickly. You don't hear from people using solid state or tube P-P as much because they are happy and really have nothing to discuss. Given they are the only options for reasonable sound pressure levels for the single ended crowd, why would this surprise you?
Enjoying a horn loaded system has nothing to do with what you drive them with. It is the best option for single ended any day, but that doesn't exclude them from being used with any other amplification.
Output transformers for single ended are really at a disadvantage because they have a constant magnetizing current - not good for low distortion. They aren't the best for P-P, but they can be a lot smaller as they don't need as much inductance (which brings up FR issues too). In the end, an output transformer is a necessary evil, OTL being a really bad option.
I design and repair tube product as well. I play with tube amps, and they are fun.
The reason most people you hear from use single ended and low power tube products on horn loaded systems is purely to get decent volume levels out at lower distortion. As you are well aware, distortion in a single ended anything goes up rapidly with power output. The same for P-P tube, but not as quickly. You don't hear from people using solid state or tube P-P as much because they are happy and really have nothing to discuss. Given they are the only options for reasonable sound pressure levels for the single ended crowd, why would this surprise you?
Enjoying a horn loaded system has nothing to do with what you drive them with. It is the best option for single ended any day, but that doesn't exclude them from being used with any other amplification.
Output transformers for single ended are really at a disadvantage because they have a constant magnetizing current - not good for low distortion. They aren't the best for P-P, but they can be a lot smaller as they don't need as much inductance (which brings up FR issues too). In the end, an output transformer is a necessary evil, OTL being a really bad option.