I had thought the same myself. Can tubes cancel each other out? Tubes are in the chain to achieve a particular sound signature you like. This is the whole idea behind tube rolling. There are tube dac tube phono pre amps and tube amps snd tube pre Amps that can all be in one chain. Every link in the chain will effect the output sound. This does not necessary make it bad but would need slot of adjustments. My biggest concern is that most tube stages add gain into the signal path and if you are adding gain of 12 + 14 how much distortion can be you end signal or output. I like the flexibility of my Freya pre if I had a tube dac I could take the tube stage out of the pre amp. Currently I have Gustard R26 non tube dac do use tube stage on Frey’s with nos tall boys. I still hope to some day find the holy grail Telefunken nos tubes and not have to pay a $1000 each. Have fun exploring and enjoy the music!
Tube DACs
For some time I've assumed that tube DACS are meant for direct output to power amps -- in other words, no reason to use a tube DAC if you are running through a tube preamp (unless all components are by same mfr and designed for synergy).
But lately I have seen posts implying some run Brand A tube DAC through brand B tube preamp -- say, Primal Luna 100 to Rogue RP-9. Can't find any prior threads addressing this topic directly.
So, question: am I wrong to suppose that pairing random tube DAC A with random tube preamp B is a bad, or at least a silly idea, absent a known synergy?
S