2. digital
  3. 166177-146733

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
invalid
1,208 posts
 
A Tube DAC softens the sound. A sound that would not need to be softened if the DAC was able to avoid certain digital distortions. Tubes are a band aid....

Tubes sound more like real music.
pauly
1,012 posts
 
A good tube DAC will produce sound as accurately as a good transistor amp, if not more. Anybody who claims tube amplification is not linear is, to put it mildly, “unfamiliar” with electronics and modern tube amp designs. Go with whichever sounds better to you. 
I’m not familiar with musical paradise but I own a RME. It’s an excellent DAC but it did not perform well driving my amp directly. I added a preamp and now it performs properly. 
mozartfan
2,143 posts
 
MP tube preamp I’m willing to give it a go.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All my components have tubes. 
Now depends what tubes the DAC has.
My fav  pre tubes in a  DAC are 12AX and 12AU. These are special tubes which you can roll and yes tubes add a  nice nuanace to the sound. 
Post removed 
invalid
1,208 posts
 
There are no tube output DACs on the market that are as linear as the best solid state output DACs. You could make one more linear, but that would take feedback, more tubes, etc. and you would probably run into noise limits before you the linearity of a SS DAC. 






Tubes are more linear devices than transistors
More to discover