Leaving DAC on all the time OK?

Techs will tell you to leave all equipment powered up 24/7 except for tube amps (output tubes tend to pass a lot of current and have to be turned off to prevent excessive tube wear) and Class-A biased transistor amps (which burn too much electricity to leave on 24/7 and which produce tons of heat). It is the thermal cycles (heating up and cooling down) that result from turning equipment on and off which tends to make equipment break. Cold equipment also sounds bad in high resolution systems. This is especially true with digital processors -- you have to leave them on 24/7 if you want them to perform as the manufacturer intended.

Of course, the above poster is correct about unplugging equipment to protect against damage from electrical storms. It is also not "green" to run equipment 24/7, but if you want to increase the chance that your equipment will break and if you want it to sound like crap, turn it on and off.

PS: The light on your DAC is almost certainly an LED -- it will last forever.

I usually agree with Nsgarch but tubes should be left on too. They live much longer since they are not expanding and compressing each time you turn the unit on and off.

Raquel, I am usually very envoronmental conscience but I never know when I'll get to listen and I found that I don't like waiting the various warm-up times. But I do agree that we should all be as "green" as possible.

p.s. It's nice to see a woman beside Elizabeth on the Gon. Welcome from all of us.

I have an Electrocompaniet DAC that I leave on most of the time.
Funny thing is, occasionally when I sit down to listen, it has this funny "out of phase" sound to it. Almost as though the entire system has been turned inside out. I would liken the sound to a kind of transistor radio feel. It really strange. It's not like the phase has bee switched 180, that would still be listenable. But it's like nothing else I've ever heard.

All I do is re-boot the DAC and all is fine. That's about the only time mine gets switched off.

Imin2u -- I know we're not talking about power tubes (in DAC's) but I thought generally tubes were like cars -- "It's not the years, it's the mileage" So that every hour powered up is an hour of useful life gone. Not so you say?
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Tubes last longer if turned off when not in use. The cathode has a limited lifetime where it is capable of full emission. There may be some turn-on stress, but that is outweighed by burning the life out of a tube.

On turn on, the filament is cold and conducts current with little resistance. The high in-rush current causes very rapid heating and thermal stress. Also, if the unit utilizes solid state rectification, the power applied to the plate come on almost immediately while the cathode may take some time warming up. This could lead to a condition called cathode stripping.

These issues are mostly non-existent if the unit uses tube rectification (the rugged rectifier takes all the abuse and slowly turns on the rest of the unit. In units with solid state rectification, the turn on can be rapid, but a lot of experts think that the "damage" is relatively minor.

It is possible to put a thermistor or other device in the power supply to slowly bring up the power in tube gear if that is a concern.