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.
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.