Pros and cons of leaving your DAC on 24/7

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

Elizabeth

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

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 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 did not know tigers like music .

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

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'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. 

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