How long are you planning to keep this DAC? Your ears might go first. ;-)

Yes, all this worrying is bad for sound quality. Just enjoy the music.

15 years ago...no similar incidents before or after. Things can go wrong sometimes, you know. Quality checks have probably changed, so the chances such thing can happen are even smaller now. Or do you assume RME is still using the faulty batch from 15 years ago?

Their QC must have been great before the event, because why would Dell (and so many others) consider them as a business partner anyway? Like I said, these things can happen. Companies sue or get sued, and move on. That's how the current world works. Nichicon still exists, so they must be doing something right. I don't really care, but I'm intrigued that someone is... :-)

Why are discussing the possibility of something happening in the future in a piece of equipment used to play music? I wonder how many people dissect the insides of their cars for pieces of equipment that might fail someday. See if they can find pieces produced by companies who once failed.

No I don't visit Gearslutz, for this exact reason. I rather make or listen music than endlessly talk about equipment. It's just tools to me. When they break, I replace them. Vintage gear might be cool, but too tricky for me. I get to spend very little hours a day on this hobby because of a regular day job and I don't want to waste it with troubleshooting vintage stuff. The Multiface in my studio, has been working flawlessly for more than 10 years, while the rest of the computer equipment has been replaced. That is remarkable these days. Drivers still get updates even.

Maybe the comment's poster knows the companies history, but chooses not to care either. Origins of the Nichicon company go back as early as the 50's (the name Nichicon appeared early 60's). That's 70 years, and only 2 years of things going wrong (2003-2005). That's a better score than me as a human being. I'm 45 and have made more failures so far, LOL.