QUESTION: Do R2R’s pair well or poorly with Tube amps? Is there a difference in their pairing with Solid State or Tube?
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The pairing is amazing.
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Could you be less ambiguous? 
(I meant this in a positive way, very helpful and clear, although it seems the system took offence. I’m not sure, but I got a message in my inbox. Anyway, just to make it clear.)
That’s great to know.
Do you - DagoRed - or anyone else, know whether the usual bad pairing of planars with Tube amps can somehow be rectified by using an R2R DAC? or whether using a Tube amp as a pre amp to a solid state power amp will somehow make it feasible?
The pairing mismatch for planars on tubes is generally related to the output impedance of many tube amps being too high to provide the appropriate damping factor for low impedance planar drivers. That is why hybrids would typically be a better option for planars if you want some of that tube sound. If you were to run a high output impedance tube amp through a solid state as a pre-amp, it can have a similar effect as using a hybrid and allow a better match for a planar that wouldn’t pair well directly on the tube.
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I really love the Bifrost 2 and the Lyr 3 pairing!
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ok, so that sounds promising. So a tube hybrid is basically a tube pre amp and solid state amp stuck together?
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Yes, the tube section in a hybrid is essentially the same as it would be in a full tube amp, but the power tube section is replaced with a solid state amp.
I see. so the power tubes in a tube pre-amp fed into a solid state power amp would be effectively bypassed or overridden.
So in all this then the R2R-Tube pairing is amazing because they are basically both fundamentally analog devices?
So reading your post makes me think “This guys needs to relax and think before he posts for a little bit”. Ladder DACs are not “fundamentally analog” by any means. Specifically ladder DACs produce a sound that the tubes can add warmth too easier since S/D DACs tend to be smoother already. I would focus more on the tube, amp, and headphone pairing this this scenario than a ladder DAC specifically.
Also it’s CHEAP tube amps add a lot of warmth. I’m sure something like the WA33 is on a different level of detail.
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So, double amping in general should be avoided. You’d want to find a tube amp that has a pre-out (could be variable or fixed, but for this use case fixed is probably better) that can be passed to the solid state amp. That would bypass the power tube in the tube amp, where double amping (again don’t do it) would still run through both the pre and power tubes.
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Interesting indeed. The R2R DAC’s produce, to use a photography analogy, a RAW format image with more, albeit less processed information, whereas the Delta Sigma DAC’s would produce the equivalent of a JPEG. The JPEG image format is harder to work with because it’s already fully processed and smoothed out, whereas the RAW image (all things being equal) is richer in, well, raw material, and is much more susceptible to being worked with.
I would actually say this analogy applies more to the difference between oversampling dacs being the jpeg and non oversampling being the raw imo
An r2r might be a different sensor or lens or something (not into cameras, don’t know too much lol)
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ok. Thanks for the warning. Although to be honest I don’t understand why precisely double amping should be avoided? inefficiency or danger?
Ok, thanks for clarifying MON. For some reason I had understood DS DACS to be inherently oversampling relative to R2R
I know enough that the analogy doesn’t quite fit. Biggest difference between ladder DACs and delta sigma is that ladder DACs puts the proper value out only, delta sigma may do extra interpolation for each point of the wave and add steps between each point in the wave.
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As in resistor or capacitor ladder? 
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aha, and therefore interpolation at each point = oversampling?
That is correct, but I think using it to compare r2r to sigma delta is too vague and not always true, I think it’s really hard to make blanket statements about a dac chip type, where your analogy tends to me more generally correct when applying to the idea of nos vs os on a r2r dac. Also I think some sigma delta dacs disable their filters and call themselves nos but idk, I don’t have too much experience with something like that
Idk, I just think that trying to generalize things based on technology used is somewhat of a wasted effort as imo most dacs should be taken on a case by case basis, I’ve heard both excellent sigma delta, r2r, fpga, dacs, it just depends on the specific dac for how it will sound. There is more to the dac than just the chip or ladder itself that shouldn’t be ignored
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