Looking for a tube (or tube sounding) DAC

@smills59 Great choice in the May DAC.  I think you will love it.  It will sound its best after a few hundred hours of play.  There is a dedicated thread for the May DAC, so please contribute your honest findings once you get it set up.  
Happy listening,
Peter

-Doge 7 $2.3

While I can’t compare it to any of the other DACs in the thread, I own the Doge and it’s a great value for the money. And if you’re judging a DAC’s tube-iness by its number of tubes, I suspect the Doge’s eight tubes when running balanced outnumbers any of the other DACs’ tubes.

Thanks everybody! I decided to order the Holo Audio Mat Dac. I'll let you know how it sounds in my system. 

I appreciate your advice!

Steve

Steve,

Some DAC makers give a 2 week trial. Not the Chinese.
But their DACs resell in seconds so you can have some fun.

Your list is pretty good. 
Possible List additions:

-Doge 7 $2.3
-Audio Note 4.1X-$3.0 but a kit. 
-Denafrips Venus $3.8

I recently bought the Audio Mirror Tubadour 3 and like it
a lot. Tried a Denafrips Ares 2 first and sold it. I like the
AM sound over the highly defined Denafrips sound.
Very personal as both are very good. I require no sharpness
on the top. 

Some great Portland retailers. Do any stock some of DACs?

Aesthetix Pandora, Lampizator

op

Thanks for your suggestions. It’s not the I don’t like the Yggy, I have an itch to upgrade to a higher level and I love the sound of tubes. I think the Aquahifi DACs are out of my budget of $6,000, but they sure look nice! I’ll check out the MHDT Orchid. I do have the Holo Audio May KTE on my list, but it’s not tube. Definitely still on my list. I’d love more suggestions, and comments on the Tubadore III and Lampizator Baltic 3.

given your response i would suggest an mhdt unit, or the audio mirror tubador, or even an ava fet tube hybrid dac... these units are very very good, natural sounding DACs that have a more gentle, yet tonally rich presentation than the Yggy... but in addition, they use 1-2 common vacuum tubes where you can shape the sound of the dac to different levels of ’tube-i-ness’ without a lot of effort and expense by varying the tube type or brand

an example is that mhdt makes a number of r2r dacs (google 'mhdt family'), based on different now rare, older r2r chips... but they use a common tube buffered output stage, run through a single 5670 'shorty' tube... one channel through each side of the dual triode 5670... i have tried several mhdt dacs and the tube used actually alters their presentation more than the base dac and chipset (see separate thread here on mhdt tube rolling)... same with the tubador... you can pull the factory supplied mini tubes and use a pair of common 6dj8’s... old ones from germany, uk, japan or usa will alter the sonic presentation substantially...

I've not noticed any issues with the PL and my ML Summit X speakers. Now maybe it's clipping and I can't tell, but I think if it is, it would be rare.

Not clipping, but becoming a tone control so it's not flat in frequency response.
This is what happens to most tubes when they see wildly varying impedance/phase angle curves, as the ML ESL's have which goes from 20ohm down to 1ohm 
https://www.prespeaker.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/martin-logan-summit-x-impedance-phase-graph.gi...

The Primaluna (black trace)
Into Sterophiles mildly hard simulated speaker load.
See how it varies + - 6db!! and that's going to look even worse on the ML's (So there it is again, if you wish to know.)
https://www.stereophile.com/images/1116PLPPfig01.jpg

Cheers George

I am doing some testing with my new tube DAC and 3 amps. I have the AMT3SE fully loaded except the XLR for longer than 1 meter runs. I have the default XLR. I am comparing this DAC with the KRELL K-300i internal DAC and a Benchmark DAC3B.

To make a long story short I find that the AMTSE really shines with my Class A amplification. That is the KRELL and the now sold CODA CSiB. The AMT3SE has a slightly warm relaxing, yet detailed sound. I also found that using the very best streamer I have had a profound affect on the AMT3SE. Streaming from ROON using my Fibre Optical system (not Toslink) was noticeably better with the AMT3SE. Actually I can say that with all the DACs I have, but it was something I noticed was a significant improvement on the AMT3SE.

I have 4 streamers available to compare.

- 2 opticalRendu’s with 2 different LPS power supplies
- 1 microRendu with LPS
- KRELL internal DAC RJ45 Ethernet streaming

The AMT3SE on the Benchmark stack (my reference stack) is something I am going back and forth with. Sometimes I find I love it and other times I am thinking it is just a minor softening compared to the Benchmark DAC3B. The gain matching with the DAC3B vs AMT3SE is a pain and may determine if I continue to use the AMT3SE with the Benchmark stack.

Next week I will retest my AMT3SE with the internal KRELL DAC to see if it is worth me having 2 DACs for my headphone use, a RAAL SR1a. I use an integrated amp for this sole purpose (a little crazy).

BTW - ROON’s feature of TRANSFER ZONE is a great feature to do this type of comparison. Love ROON, it has gotten to be transformative for my use.

Thanks for your suggestions. It's not the I don't like the Yggy, I have an itch to upgrade to a higher level and I love the sound of tubes.

I think the Aquahifi DACs are out of my budget of $6,000, but they sure look nice!  I'll check out the MHDT Orchid.  I do have the Holo Audio May KTE on my list, but it's not tube.  Definitely still on my list.

I'd love more suggestions, and comments on the Tubadore III and Lampizator Baltic 3.

George, you and I traded comments in an earlier thread when I bought my PL.  You had the same comment then.  I demoed the Saunders AMP with my Parasound preamp against the PL and decided on the PL.  I never listen to music loud (wife doesn't like it).  I've not noticed any issues with the PL and my ML Summit X speakers.  Now maybe it's clipping and I can't tell, but I think if it is, it would be rare.

Thanks again.  This is indeed a great community of folks.  

The MHDT made my system sounds so much better

sympathetic colorations and system synergies are the lifeblood of assembling beautiful sounding systems

we listen with our ears, for pleasure and to stir passion

'accuracy' and measurement geeks have always missed the central point of why this pursuit exists

I don't want to twist your arm to spend about 1/5th of your budget, but the MHDT Orchid DAC sounds incredible with my Quicksilver tube gear, my Node streamer, and my Salk Speakers. I've matched it also with Atoll solid state gear. In all cases, it is clear without being edgy and always adds a third dimension to the imaging. There is no smudging of the image. It is available via MHDT on Ebay or via Linear Tube Audio, who are great to work with. That said, if I were to try another, from my research the Audio Mirror Tubador is at the top of my list.

Maybe give a try to the metronome LaDac.very musical and warm

Couldn’t disagree with George more there are dacs which can have a more liquid sound yes that may be coloration but many Audio systems will sound more engaging with a bit of coloration
The ultimate sound of the dac will hinge upon the type and design of the analog output stage

One if the best sounding dacs you can get is the Aqua hifi la Scala

https://www.aquahifi.com/la_scala.html

The Aqua is an r2r dac with a fpga stage which allows the dac to handle all high res files rhe Aqua is also 100 percent upgradable so as digital changes your dac can continue to improve

The lascala has a liquid midrange a huge soudstage and great resolution
It is a stunning achievement in digital the design and build quality is among the best you can find

https://6moons.com/audioreviews2/aqua3/1.html


Dave and troy
Audio intellect Nj
AQUA HIFI DEALERS

BTW I wouldn’t use tubes on ML ESL’s, from experience, they dip to 1ohm in the top end and your highs will sound recessed lacking in openness and sparkle.

Cheers George

It all starts with the source, get that right and you've stepped part the way up the ladder.

If a dac needs a tube colorations to make it sound musical, it wasn't a very good dac to start with.
Have a listen to flagship discrete R2R dacs from Denefrips, Holo, MSB, Soekris, they'll give you it all in a big rich way and be sweet doing it, then it's up to the rest of your system amp/s speakers give what they give.

Cheers George  

what about the sound of the yggy is making you want to sell it for something different?

at this level, various options sound more different than ’better or worse’... so what type of sonic improvement are you chasing?

... and is your yggy the latest iteration?

the primaluna d-hp already sounds pretty ’tubey’, coupled with big and bold...