I recently moved from the Meitner MA-1 to the Romulus--I actually prefer the Romulus to the Meitner on PCM; I hear a more organic, natural "meatier" presentation (although the Meitner is very good IMHO). I sorely miss the MA-1's ability to play DSD files however, and am eagerly waiting for Aesthetix to begin the Signature upgrade so that my Romulus will also be able to do DSD.
I'm a tube lover, and really enjoy being able to subtly tweak my sound with different tubes. I've found that a mix of Mullard 10M 6DJ8's with nos Tesla ecc83's is fantastic to my ears, or for an equally sublime but a bit different sound, Mullard cv4109's with Mullard 10M 12ax7.
I also use the Aesthetix Calypso pre, and like that it uses the same types of tubes, so that I can compile a nice stock of alternatives that will work in both the DAC and the pre.
I recently started feeding the dac's xlr input via a Transparent Ref XL cable from an Audiobyte Hydra X usb converter (my transport is a bootcamped Mac Mini running Windows Server 2012 with Audiophile Optimizer) and I've never had better digital playback.
For anyone using a Windows computer based system, I strongly urge that you give Windows Server 2012 with the Audiophile Optimizer a try. I'm still in the demo period of WS2012, so haven't had to pay that high license fee yet (although Phil the creator of Audiophile Optimizer now has it working with Windows Essential server software, which is a couple hundred bucks cheaper than WS2012), but I truly believe that the license fee I paid for Audiophile Optimizer is the best $ I've spent on audio in over 30 years of being immersed in this hobby! (No affiliation with Phil/Audiophile Optimizer other than as an extremely satisfied customer).
Randy