tube dacs vs solid state dacs

The tubes in all digital equipment are in the final gain stage.
It is similar to using a tubed preamplifier.
Though the small tube compliment, and cheap power supply in all the tubed DACs are more equivalent to various small tube buffers offered for sale.
I own a TADAC tubed DAC but i use an Adcom AD700 for most listening to digital, via a tubed preamp I call my glorified tube buffer.

What i would say is the minimal tube compliment in all the 'tubed DAC' are not enough to actually give a quality sound.
One would be far better buying a decent tubed preamp for the 'tube'yness' function.

I generally prefer tubes when it comes to amps and preamps. With source-DAC/CD players I find SS vs tube far less important compared to the overall implementation. A good SS discrete output stage,no negative feedback and with a robust power supply can sound as good or better than a tube output stage. Execution seems to matter the most.

Strictly a personal preference kind of thing.

Modwright Transpoter is an excellent, versitle, fun tubed dac.

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.