Leaving DAC on all the time OK?

Why not just leave the transport on also? Neither component consumes much power idle, so no real harm to the environment or your electric bill.

Just unplug all of your gear if electrical storms are in the area!

As long as we're not including tube DAC's I agree w/ the previous statments. With transports, it's fine to leave them on too. Just remember to take the CD out of the player to insure that the laser and/or any clamping mechanism are not left in a powered-up state.
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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.