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Does a Tube Dac make sense?


I’m  in the market for a dac since I bought a Musical Paradise MP701MKII Tube Preamp few months back, does it make sense to buy a tube dac? The seller Garry is suggesting to get the Musical Paradise MP D2 MKIII which is a tube dac with a AK4490 but can be upgraded to AK4499 but I’m leaning towards the RME ADI2 which is almost the same price as the MP tube dac. I’m finding it hard to justify a $1k dac but I have read a lot of forums that suggests the RME or the SMSL M400 and Denafrips Ares II but I’m a sucker for vu meters and spectrum analyzers but if the MP tube dac is a good match for my MP tube preamp I’m willing to give it a go.
stibin
audioguy85's avatar
audioguy85
2,018 posts
 
Get the Border Patrol Dac with tubed power supply section. No tubes in the Dac signal chain, but a rectifier tube in the power supply that can be switched in or out via button on front panel. It’s a R2R with a phillips chip.
adg101
1,063 posts
 
The RME ADI 2fs is a great DAC especially with a linear power supply. I have a ModWright LS36.5 which is a nice preamp. Lately I’ve been running my RME/Teddy Pardo direct into my amp and I’m not missing my tube preamp in the chain whatsoever. The ModWright is not a creamy sounding preamp but it’s also far from sounding thin, sterile, cold or flat like some solid state preamps. The RME going direct loses none of the attributes of my ModWright, but where it pulls ahead is it’s transparency, it’s brutally honest, but even on mediocre recordings I prefer going direct. The noise floor is nonexistent, so even though it is very revealing, it simply passes what it is being feed doing very little to alter or smear things. The RME has tons of settings to alter its sound to ones taste, either with tone controls, Eq, and different filters. I run mine with all settings set to lock or direct and with the sharp filter and I find it easily competes with my tube preamp. It’s all about synergy so if you think your system is a little on the thin or harsh side then maybe the RME is not the right DAC as it’s not going to butter things over but point out you may have shortcomings elsewhere. It’s a great DAC and worthy of being connected to cables that cost far more than itself. Those using the stock power supply and power cable have no idea how great this DAC is.
oldhvymec
5,101 posts
 
OK MAYBE. I have a Mcintosh C2500 it has a DAC and valves, does that count?

Regards
superstoked
31 posts
 
I use to have a jolida jd 100 which had a tubed output stage. It wasn’t very good and got replaced with a musically cd/dac. The music hall is 10 times better. I do run tube separates and I have the mytek liberty now. It sounds very good.
melvinjames
416 posts
 
Makes sense to me as well. You can spend months reading/researching but in the end you need to listen for yourself. I went through this a few years ago before purchasing my MHDT Lab Pagoda. This DAC turned out to be one of the best audio purchases I've made. Never a problem driving downstream gear. I'm currently using it direct to a Decware SE84UFO and it's equally impressive when using my solid state gear. Best of luck to you.
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