tube dacs vs solid state dacs

Shakey, I may stand corrected. Perhaps Liz and Marakanetz can clarify their posts. I echo what I said about the DAC IC -- it's critical to sound quality. But at least in the case of ARC gear, the innards, including power supply, are based on the landmark Ref 3. In no way would I concur that ARC went cheap on their CDPs.

I have heard that ARC may be going the straight DAC route at this point. I am not aware of a CD-9 coming on line, but I could be wrong. The CD-8 is almost 4 years old. That's generally when ARC rolls out a new product. It may be that ARC is of the view that redbook CD has run its course and it's time to go the DAC route. Just speculation my my part.

Bifwayne,
The DAC chip is important(no arguement) but 'many' various brands of CDP/DACs use the same chip yet sound vastly different.The notion that'all' tube DAC/CDP have subpar power supplies is just incorrect.

I have heard tube and non tube designed DAC and cdps that sound good. For years my digital playback of choice was a Tube Research Labs modified Sony universal player. Not a tube in sight, but wonderful sound. It actually replaced a player with a tube output stage.

Now I have an outboard DAC with a tube output stage. It sounds great and replaced the TRL Sony. I agree with Charles1dad. It's more about the implementation than the sum of the parts. To my way of thinking, the PS and analogue stage is more important than the DAC chip.

Shakey

can i deduce from the posts i have read, that regardless of tube selection, if there are problems in design, the tube cannot overcome them ? for example, an inferior dac chip can not be ameliorated by selecting the right tube.

Denon 5900/ModWright, Metrum Octave.

I auditioned six other under $600-$2000 DAC's before settling on the Octave. Without getting into the brands the other six DAC's were of generally traditional design with a non tube output stage.

To varying degrees some offered improvements in detail and transparency over the Denon player as well as using the players optical output via Van Dan Hul Optocoupler MK II > DAC, bypassing the the ModWright tube output stage.

In all cases I enjoyed listening to the player regardless of the varying loss of detail and transparency.

Right out of the box the Metrum Acoustics Octave Non Over Sampling DAC with its chip based output stage delivered all the detail and transparency of the best of the six also rans but with a rich lushness and shimmer that is as easy to listen to as my analog.

I need to be clear here. It's not the same as analog but it's the first time in my limited experience were digital became as easy to listen to as an LP. And this from Pure Music 96kHz output through a wireless connection to a Squeezebox Touch.

Once again I'm convinced that as with using a tube preamplifier as a tone control for some class D amplifiers the use of a tube output stage on my player is simply a band aid or filter for the poor execution of its digital conversion.

"The application of technology is what is important. It can produce brilliant or poor results depending on its implementation."
Jeff Rowland, The Absolute Sound May/june 2012 Issue 223 pg 71.