[yage]

 
I agree with most of that above. But we also have the inverse of the tube effect. The fact solid state amplification can and often does sound cold and artificial. I can't remember how many demo rooms I have heard at shows, with the same DAC and speakers even, and when the SS amp is swopped out for a SET, then we are talking, things start to sound more REAL.
 
I am unsure if the (slight) friendly distortion of tubes is the only key thing here. Transistor and FETs are amplify sound in a very different way. Also I seem to prefer tube rectified power supplies when I have heard the same pre-amplifier with both SS and tube PCB stage as an A/B.
 
The other thing I began to realise (in my view / taste) is having some tubes in the music seem somewhere helps bring a realism back to digital. Without is, i.e. SS straight through, I just didn't get it, it did not convince me it was real music, only impressive hifi. For example I bought a very good tubed pre-amplifier way back to drive my solid state mono blocks, it seemed to work well.
 
Back to tubes in a DAC and is it worth it? Well, a DAC of ANY description is a pre-amplifier of some sort or other i.e. it has to amplify the digital signal once it is brought over to voltage / analogue. At this point the signal is minute and has to be given gain to go anywhere. Some DACs have a true line stage that can drive a power amplifier directly like the TotalDAC and my modded Audio Note DAC. Even a DAC with a simple opp amp is going to affect the final sound hugely. Remember, when the signal is tiny and fragile (bit like in a phono stage with 50 DB+ gain) it needs to be protected and cherished, any damage at this stage will be amplified to an incredible degree further on. 
 
You know, there are many manufacturers who build tube amplifiers and believe the old faithful triode a more prefect amplifying device even against the most modern electronics.

 
Funny how I've heard tube amps sound both 'cold' (i.e. more like solid state - and I would classify Schiit's offerings in this camp) vs 'warm' (the classic loose bass, rolled off treble sound). Frankly, I don't buy into that debate either. Again, it's the end result that matters. For example, the gear I've got is solid state (Ayre Acoustics) but it exhibits a realism and dimensionality in its midrange that I would ascribe to tubes and it still maintains decent grip over the lower registers. Is it because it uses no overall feedback? Or is it the diamond circuit topology? Perhaps it's because it's fully-balanced or is DC coupled. Yes, probably on all those points. Yet I'm not going to extend that conclusion to preclude myself from enjoying gear that doesn't incorporate those design decisions because all that matters is how all of it - together - sounds.
 
Now, having said that, would replacing the solid state power supply for a tube-based one in my integrated amp improve the sound? I don't know. If it did, I'd buy it. Tubes vs. solid state, R2R vs. delta-sigma - it matters and yet it doesn't matter.
 
EDIT: In an effort to sway this thread even more off-topic, here's an interesting article on distortion by Nelson Pass: https://passlabs.com/articles/audio-distortion-and-feedback. It contains some great information and some surprising conclusions too.

 

[watchnerd]

 
Even a DAC with a simple opp amp is going to affect the final sound hugely.

 
It doesn't have to be an op amp.  It can be discrete transistors.
 
The highly rated Schiit Yggy that you have mentioned has a discrete transistor analog stage.

 

[watchnerd]

 
 
EDIT: In an effort to sway this thread even more off-topic, here's an interesting article on distortion by Nelson Pass: https://passlabs.com/articles/audio-distortion-and-feedback. It contains some great information and some surprising conclusions too.

 
I thought this was particularly interesting:
 
"Anecdotally, it appears that preferences break out roughly into a third of customers liking 2nd harmonic types, a third liking 3rd harmonic, and the remainder liking neither or both. Customers have also been known to change their mind over a period of time."
 
"Audiophiles have been accused of using 2nd or 3rd harmonic distortion as tone controls to deliberately alter the sound. I suppose that there are people who like it that way, but I don't think this is generally the case. For reasons which will become clearer when we talk about inter-modulation distortion, high levels of any harmonic become problematic with musical material having multiple instruments, and the argument that 2nd or 3rd adds “musicality” doesn't quite hold up."
 
"The sound of 2nd order type circuits is often praised as “warm” and by comparison 3rd order type circuits are often noted for “dynamic contrast”. 2nd order type amplifiers seem to do particularly well with simple musical material, and 3rd order types generally seem to be better at more complex music."

 

[watchnerd]

  Now, having said that, would replacing the solid state power supply for a tube-based one in my integrated amp improve the sound?

 
Not sure what you mean by this?  'Regular' power supplies consist of transformers, which aren't tubes or solid state devices.

 

[yage]

   
Not sure what you mean by this?  'Regular' power supplies consist of transformers, which aren't tubes or solid state devices.

This was in reference to the 'tube rectification' comment.

 

[watchnerd]

 
I like Schiit, but I find the whole R2R debate and the "sample-preserving" filter a good way to differentiate their products in the marketplace - but mostly that.

 
I like Schiit, too.  But the whole "sample-preserving" argument hinges upon this idea that somehow the sample is itself untainted in every step of the chain after the moment it hits the microphone.  It isn't (or almost never is).

 

[pedalhead]

I like Schiit, but I find the whole R2R debate and the "sample-preserving" filter a good way to differentiate their products in the marketplace - but mostly that.

I like Schiit, too.  But the whole "sample-preserving" argument hinges upon this idea that somehow the sample is itself untainted in every step of the chain after the moment it hits the microphone.  It isn't (or almost never is).

My technical knowledge of how the Schiit multibit dacs work runs out well before this point. Any chance you could elaborate please? Cheers!

 

[watchnerd]

My technical knowledge of how the Schiit multibit dacs work runs out well before this point. Any chance you could elaborate please? Cheers!

 
It has nothing to do with the design of Schiit's products, but rather the obsession with "sample preservation".
 
The recording sample that hits the ADC isn't preserved in the digital masters unaltered.  It gets adjusted in post-production as part of the mastering process.
 
Why get fetishistic about exact sample preservation at the time of reproduction when the sample that is being reproduced has already been irreversibly altered from the original during mastering?
 
Not to mention if any DSP is applied at the time of reproduction via active crossovers (my monitors use a DSP crossover running at 16bit/48khz) or room correction.

 

[Pirakaphile]

I can definitely say that going from the Modi to the Gungnir Multibit was THE difference between good audio, and 'being there' in the recording. I know nothing about the science of digital-to-analog conversion past the surfacy stuff I actually understood in Jason's story, but I know what I hear, and whatever magic is going on in that big box is better than what was going on in the littler box the Modi was in. 

 

[watchnerd]

  I can definitely say that going from the Modi to the Gungnir Multibit was THE difference between good audio, and 'being there' in the recording. I know nothing about the science of digital-to-analog conversion past the surfacy stuff I actually understood in Jason's story, but I know what I hear, and whatever magic is going on in that big box is better than what was going on in the littler box the Modi was in. 

 
There are so many variables that are different between those two DACs: power supplies, balanced vs single ended, op amps vs discrete, etc. Even if the DAC chips were exactly the same, I would expect them to sound different based on the differences in the analog stages alone.