tube dacs vs solid state dacs


there have been a number of posts extolling the virtues of seceral brands of solid state dacs.

however, it would seem that the flexibility of tube variation, especially in the gain stage , should best the performance of most solid state dacs.

yes , it brings to mind the issue of tubes vs solid state, but i think the particular facility available to tube dac owners vs solid state dacs has not been sufficiently emphasized.
mrtennis
Liz's right. there are no actually tube DACs. They all only have the tube gain stage. The logic part is done by DAC IC and that's where most of quality depends on.
I believe sound quality mostly depends on the output stage and power supply quality.
A while back I purchased an Audio Research DAC8 strictly on the premise that it sounded better than any other I'd heard, design concerns aside. Before I purchased it I had a long conversation with a fellow at A.R.C. I asked him why they stopped using tubes in there newest DAC, he said they built and tried both technologies for there latest DAC, but the all solid state unit just sounded better to everyone there.