Audiophile Loudness Wars—Too Much again!?

I agree. Many digital components have too much gain for many systems. Many amps are designed to be very sensitive, having too much gain.

Yes, and I wish I had a dollar for all the times people tell me, well buy a preamp with gain adjustment.  Sure, they exist but I don't think even premium ubiquitous brands, like Audio Research, offer the feature. 

The digital side is horrendous in my view.  Who needs all this gain? 

Nobody needs it. Lower gain tubes help a little, if one has tubed components. My amp has adjustable gain thank God.

Agreed jtcf.   I just put 12au7s across V1-V8 in my tube DAC, which specifies 12ax7s and 12at7s.  I dislike messing with what the designer intended but I have gain coming out my ears over here. 

I think when it comes to DACs and other digital gear, the differences in decoding are immaterial. There are no "musical" dac chips etc, its 1's and 0's. The level of "jitter" or other artifacts in even low end digital gear is well below audible levels.

The differences in sound you might actually hear are largely attributed to the output stages, and to gain a perceived sonic advantage, or to justify prices, you get some seriously overbuilt output devices which leads to excess gain.
You did the right thing by using a lower output tube. The other option would be to plug directly to the amp, but that would only work if the component has some kind of volume control, which many do.

If you are going to go the separates route, skip the DAC and just get a basic cd player or streamer and a really good preamp.