Please recommend a budget tube dac

MHDT is great. I loved the Havana, and have heard great things about the Pardesia as well.

Thanks -- did anybody hear the new Jolida tube dacs at RMAS?

I'm in the process of breaking in a Music Hall DAC 25.2 and can't stop listening to it. It flat out slays my old Consonance CD 120 Linear. For a 'budget' DAC, you can't go wrong. My system is quite revealing and I can't hear the defects that others have posted elsewhere. It is very musical, detailed, articulate, nuanced, fleshed out, you name it. I finally have a great center stage and the images stay stable and layered. I plan on swapping tubes once I get accustomed to it for evaluation purposes but right out of the box, it is one fine DAC. I am running it out of my Oppo DV-983H DVD player and it is a great pairing.
As for that 'rich' tube sound, that might be an apt term. There's nothing syrupy, or bloated. Just the aforementioned observations along with great tone, decay and extension. And it just gets better the longer it plays.

Have you seen this auction?

http://cgi.audiogon.com/cgi-bin/auc.pl?dgtlconv&1258425159

You might be able to get it for a good price.