Looking for a tube (or tube sounding) DAC

what about the sound of the yggy is making you want to sell it for something different?

at this level, various options sound more different than ’better or worse’... so what type of sonic improvement are you chasing?

... and is your yggy the latest iteration?

the primaluna d-hp already sounds pretty ’tubey’, coupled with big and bold...

It all starts with the source, get that right and you've stepped part the way up the ladder.

If a dac needs a tube colorations to make it sound musical, it wasn't a very good dac to start with.
Have a listen to flagship discrete R2R dacs from Denefrips, Holo, MSB, Soekris, they'll give you it all in a big rich way and be sweet doing it, then it's up to the rest of your system amp/s speakers give what they give.

Cheers George  

BTW I wouldn’t use tubes on ML ESL’s, from experience, they dip to 1ohm in the top end and your highs will sound recessed lacking in openness and sparkle.

Cheers George

Couldn’t disagree with George more there are dacs which can have a more liquid sound yes that may be coloration but many Audio systems will sound more engaging with a bit of coloration
The ultimate sound of the dac will hinge upon the type and design of the analog output stage

One if the best sounding dacs you can get is the Aqua hifi la Scala

https://www.aquahifi.com/la_scala.html

The Aqua is an r2r dac with a fpga stage which allows the dac to handle all high res files rhe Aqua is also 100 percent upgradable so as digital changes your dac can continue to improve

The lascala has a liquid midrange a huge soudstage and great resolution
It is a stunning achievement in digital the design and build quality is among the best you can find

https://6moons.com/audioreviews2/aqua3/1.html


Dave and troy
Audio intellect Nj
AQUA HIFI DEALERS

Maybe give a try to the metronome LaDac.very musical and warm