I use a tubed cdp, a Jolida JD 100A. I probably overpaid, even at the "great" price I got, and maybe I suffer from distortion? All I know is that it really sounds a ton better than the Denon universal DVD player it replaced. Just the reduction of sibilance alone had me sold, most evident on choral works. Mind you, I had bought all of my gear, a lot of it at the same time, with zero budget intended for the cdp. I wasn't happy still. Just didn't sound nearly as good as in the showrooms. I went back, was told my cdp was the weak link, and I was skeptically thinking, "Hmmmmm......". But, that's my story.
What's nice about tubes in a cdp or pre/pro is that the draw is much less on the tubes. On the cdp, it's darn near negligible. I think the tubes have about the same amount of hours as the life of a plasma. On an amp, one has to bias, warm them up, and replace often.
please note my integrated only has analog inputs.