Tube DACs

@hickamore

There are a number of dacs with tubes. Some have volume (Lampizator, Totaldac D1-Tube) some don’t (Aqua La Scala). Some skeptics may opine that they color the sound….but what doesn’t? VERY few dac, be they solid state or tube output stage, do a great job driving an amp directly. I’ve tried it for years with varying degrees of success.

I think of the volume control on a dac as a way to “match” the dac output to the optimal input level of the preamp/integrated. MSB, Lampizator, DCS, Totaldac…all sound pretty good driving direct but not at their best. Think about it, few dac builders are going to take the time or go to the expense to implement an output stage that tops that of the better output stages found in better preamps. In addition, fitting it all optimally into a single chassis introduces a whole different set of issues. My 2 cents.

I run a Jadis tube dac through my Lamm LL2.1 deluxe all tube preamp and it sounds marvelous. Enjoy the music

I own both tubed DAC and preamp. Definitely a very synergistic combination. In my system especially since both are Audio Research. Absolutely nothing wrong combining different brands.

One thing I must comment on is the word “random”. I assume you did not really mean just combining two different brands randomly. But that research into the sound quality of each… and particularly when buying the second is a part of your process.

I definitely do recommend both. Quite honestly when I added my tube DAC… it was astonishing how much more musical and realistic my system got.

Thanks to all for the informative answers. Somehow I had forgotten those tube DACs having no volume control. So what about pairing tube DAC with SS preamp? (Not that I'm planning any experiments, and if I did, @ghdprentice is correct, they wouldn't really be "random"). 

If those dac manufacturers didn't expect it to be used directly to amps, they should just leave off the volume controls,  no sense having the signal go through two analog stages, one good and one crappy.