That’s exactly right. For the Modwright, the difference in sound is not as obvious when changing tubes and cables. For the CSL, it is VERY obvious. I guess that’s what transparent means? It doesn’t add anything as it is not there. So, the CSL requires some effort to match to get the best out of it. To be honest, when I first get it, it doesn’t match very well with my system. I even thought if I get a defective unit. Then I spent quite a lot of time playing with all different combinations of tubes and cables, and finally found one now that I feel it sounds quite good now. Since the DAC sound so good with the Modwright, I can’t imagine I need to change the tubes initially; until I tried back my old Audio-gd DAC and doesn’t have that kind of distorted sound. Finally, I found out the stock Chinese 6N1P tubes with gain set to high solve the problem! All my nice vintage tubes doesn’t work, really have no ideal. But anyway, I am happy now.