Does anyone experience sound improvement from restarting power off and on of DAC?

If you want a passive award winning audio improvement for equipment breakin 

and track3 a 5 minute system tuneup that works I have recommended this for years 

the Isotek system runin cd 

as far as your unit it may be a bad capacitor possibly . I would contact PS Audio

ths is not normal if anything it should sound better left on for its at its optimum running temperature I have been in several audio clubs for years and owned a Audio store , and have spoken with many designers ,you have a defective unit 

PS audio Tech support for sure !!

I also used to have a Directstream DAC MK1 and I did notice the same thing: the sound improved whenever I would recycle the power, or even better, when reloading the firmware.

After reading some of the posts from Ted Smith regarding the digital filtering going on in the DAC, I assumed that the sound improved because following those events (i.e. power recycle or firmware reload), the memory where all the previous filtered values gets cleared and we are probably listening to a purer sound (i.e. less filtered). If I were you, I would ask your question directly to Ted Smith via the PS Audio forum webpage.
 

brge,

 I have asked Ted Smith, on a few occasions, about this issue of sounding better after powering off and on thus reinitializing the dac and he claims it to be perfectly normal not unlike “degaussing” or “demagnetizing” the dac. Ted has said that I am not alone and that there’s no problem with my particular dac. He said that some owners of both the Mk1 and Mk2 notice this phenomenon. It’s not as though the sound goes bad but it can just sound better with occasional reboots.

+1 @audioman58 

My BDA-3 dac and Roon Titan have been on since coming out of their boxes.  They were powered off once for ~2 days due to a powerful storm  and subsequent power outage. Noticeable difference in SQ upon power up.

As stated above the Directstream is clearing out the cache and resetting/synchronizing clock/buffers etc.

I would keep doing it, but only for the minute you had said above.

Regards,

barts 

My DAC sounds better after I flush all the toilets in the house.