Pros and cons of leaving your DAC on 24/7

You don't kill it by leaving it on.   You kill it by turning it on. Think about a light bulb  never just burns out 
Always when you turn it on.  If its tube turn it off 
All other keep on. Vacation turn all off 
 Storm try not to forget too   Just I M O 

I'm very pleased with the V90. I bought it as an experiment. I was just going to upgrade my CD player. But I realized I had other digital sources that all would benefit from a DAC. I would just use my CD as a transport.  I didn't know what to buy that would be inexpensive but worthwhile as a improvement over the CD player output. I figured I'll buy something inexpensive and if it does sound better, then I'll buy a real DAC. If it doesn't, then I didn't waste thousands. So I did a little research. There are tons of options in the $300- $500 price range. That made the decision hard. But then I found a V90 on eBay for a really good price and grabbed it. I'm impressed. It's far better than I expected. I don't feel like I need to run out and buy a "real" DAC at this point. I'm a vinyl guy that has spun about 40 CDs in the last few weeks. That would have been a years worth of CD listening previously. I'm sure I will get the bug and upgrade at some point, but first I'm thinking of experimenting with this DAC to see if it can improve. First up is a power supply. If I can't find a better ps I will make one. I have to think battery power to the DAC would offer improvements. Maybe a better cable than the Audioquest I'm using. Then I'll peek inside -but this kind of circuitry is foreign to me so maybe not. Anyway, I've proven to myself that I can enjoy digital. That's a good purchase in my book. 

HaHa, thinking  gear provides enough heat in winter that you won't have to use homes heater as much, lol! Stereo gear doesn't  provide enough heat to benefit from it, and even if it did it would be like turning on your stove because you want to save electricity. 

My Parasound and Marantz SS gear get turned on as needed… The Parasound amp has a soft start plus I  don't own stock in the electric company.

I also have a MF V90 DAC. I used to turn it off when not listening. Lately, I just leave it on, it doesn't take much power to run and I think the in-rush current when switching it on probably does more harm than leaving it on, just my opinion.

How do you like the DAC? I've recently upgraded some of my other components and am wondering about an upgrade to the V90 DAC. I have another system with a Lavry DA10 Black DAC that sounds incredible but it has a much higher price tag. Any thoughts?

Regards

I did not know tigers like music .

Retire. Then you can listen all day long, every day like I do!  Before I retired, when I went to work,  I left my stereo on playing music for my pets!

I do hate the wasted energy that is caused by leaving my equipment on. But as I stated in my OP, waiting for components to warm up is a problem for me. Some nights I may only have an hour or two where I can listen to music after work. Losing part of that time to warm up isn't ideal. I feel like the tiny wall wart power supply my DAC came with can't burn much juice. However, like many of you, I see a wall wart driving any of my audio gear and I'm immediately looking for a better PS solution. A linear PS will consume much more energy. So I will have to revisit the "always on" idea when I find a PS for the DAC. I have added several other components lately as well.  The consumption of energy used by leaving these things on 24/7 when I only listen to the system a few hours a day on average is becoming a more lopsided equation. 

I can say my system adds to my electric bill. About as much as my air conditioner. $15 to $25 a month) And the air conditioner has to remove all the heat generated by the stereo too. So leaving the stereo on 24.7 in Summer you pay DOUBLE. Once for having the electronics on 24.7 then again for removing the added heat from said electronics via the air conditioner. If you pay for your heat in Winter, then you save money, since the heat added from the stereo SAVES money on the heating bill

Now that you mention it, I think I do recall that being mentioned years back in an article, but at the time I didn't pay much attention. When I was still working, career technician, we used to have sheets of the stuff that IC's, etc. came in on....Retired now or I'd snatch some up, probably be able to find it easily enough on line............Also, I recall the 400Hz thing........Don't see myself buying a regenerator any time soon though, unless I found one used on ebay :)

As for leaving gear on, as long as it is able to "breath" with good ventilation, and doesn't get more than warm, should be fine. Excess heat kills electronics. We never tested anything unless it had been on a minimum of 30 minutes, preferably longer, to stabilize. Test equipment was never turned off, except over long holidays. 

 My larger power amp tends to run hot , but only when I'm listening to music, so I picked up a low noise, 18db, 120mm PC cooling fan, built a simple frame for it and set it on top of the amp. Looks fine and keeps the amp cool no matter how hard I push it..........If anybody is interested, the fan is a Noctua......Austrian made, NF-S12A.......less than $20. Very quiet, barely hear it even in a quiet room. That with a 12 volt wall wart and heat problem is gone.

ejr

I don't know what your system is, but leaving it on, at idle, isn't going to add more than a couple bucks a month to your bill. I doubt that you'd even notice the difference month to month, gear off or gear on.

I have no idea why no one else has done it? It was originally a comment in Stereophile from the correspondent in Belgium(?) years back. mentioning stuffing antistatic foam to reduce digital grunge. it really only seems to affect the highest frequencies, the HF digital glare/grunge. (the idea is to absorb the RFI EMI generated by the chips inside the case so that stuff does not affect the signal) Maybe no one can hear it? I tried it on my DAC. At least ten years ago. Then I bought another DAC and did that one too. The Black antistatic foam, not the blue! Used it for a long time like that.I wrote about it several times over the years. But, no one ever followed up on it as far as I know. If I had an audio business, I would have designed a soft plastic tray to fit into various DAC cases with the foam prefilled. So it could slip into the case easily, a wire trailing out to screw to the chassis to ground it. No one seems to be interested, Worked for me ****************************************************************
The other tweak is higher AC frequency. a LOT harder to implement since you need a regenerator which can up the AC frequency. Only one which could do it was the PS Audio "P" series back from ten fifteen plus years ago. Some had a optional board allowing the change in AC frequency. Rare now, and hard to find. One alternative would be 400Hz airplane AC. (All commercial airliners use 400Hz AC frequency on board the plane for AC power. There ARE ground based 400Hz AC converters one can buy (check eBay).. Paul McGowan of PS Audio experimented with alternate AC and found 400Hz to be the ideal highest Hz to use on audio equipment anyway. Personally if I had a lot of money I would own a couple of 400Hz ground based airplane 400Hz AC devices to play around with. As is, all I can do is max 120Hz from my PS Audio P-600 regenerator. I use AC 110 Hz for all my digital gear.The higher AC frequency is another idea I first got from a Stereophile article years ago, and reinforced by Paul McGowan’s experiments. You can find a uTube video of him talking about higher AC frequency. Here is a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np--y3Kfy28 ...Enjoy!

Elizabeth

Were  you serious about the anti-static foam?.......If so why, never heard of that.

As for how stuff sounds from a cold start, to xx length of time..I find my amp and various preamps sound best after a few hours. from a cold start.                
And the amp, if from sitting for a few days, takes a whole day to sound it best. I do leave turned off one preamp I use just or the phono section. It stays off weeks at a time. And takes about two hours to really sound it's best. My latest tube preamp (Audible Illusions 3A) has a standby which keeps the tubes warm. And it sounds pretty good within minutes of turn on.

Thanks for the feedback. I leave my vintage SS preamp and amp on all the time. But the DAC is newer technology and I didn't know if that made a difference. 

My DAC is tubed and the manufacturer still recommends leaving it on 24/7 and I do, unless I leave town for a week or more.

I don't leave my equipment powered "on" all the time, don't want to consume that much electricity.  My amp and preamp "automagically" power themselves off after so many minutes of inactivity (no way to adjust that), and my DACs throw off a lot of heat, even when in "standby" mode.

I do find that the first 10 minutes or so, my system doesn't sound the best, but after that short amount of time, seems to find its stride.

Not only did I leave my DAC on 24/7... I stuffed it full of antistatic foam in baggies.. Left it on for over 12 years. Now I bought a better one, but that DAC is still ready to be used.Leaving a DAC on makes sense.Though depending how hot the case gets... heat is the enemy of capacitors. So if for some odd reason the case gets hot, it would be better to turn off when not in use. Just to keep the caps alive longer.If the case is only warm, no problem leaving it on all the time.By hot I mean you can keep your hand on the hottest part, but it is a little uncomfortable.

SS equipment can be left on 24/7.The exception being Class A amps that run very hot. Those should be turned on an hour or two before use and then off after listening finishes. Preamps and Class AB amps that become moderately warm are ok to be on for extended periods. They may benefit by having fewer on/off cycles. I leave the SS gear I'm using on 24/7.