Actually... what is a tube DAC?

Tube DAC tube DAC, this term keeps popping up now and then, people choosing them for either the tube sound or the tube presence.

What would be the most accurate thing to be called a tube DAC?

Tube, like transistors, are semiconductor devices. You can make a computer out of it.

So instead of using an IC containing tonnes of transistors, you use individual tubes to make the DAC stage instead. Tonnes of individual tubes.

And that's why tubes are never used in computers anymore.

So a tube DAC doesn't exist.

What we have are IC DACs with a tube buffer.

If one argue that since it is a DAC with a tube inside can be called a tube DAC, I can say that a chip amp with a tube inside can be called a tube amp. Some people will go crazy over this statement. But it's the same logic.

Of course, some people think that a hybrid amp is the same as a tube amp. I won't try to argue further. I never do in pointless situations.