PS Audio PerfectWave DAC Upgrade

Mcondon, PS audio is specifically positioning the DAC as a network steaming device. The ultimate goal is to get the bridge interface to sound as good as the PWT, which theoretically it should be capable of. I personally went from using the bridge to the AES/EBU interface (I inserted a Trinnov processor in the chain before the PWD MKII), and found the differences between the bridge (I2S) and AES/EBU minimal after the MKII upgrade.

I never fiddled with firmware versions myself, and I am hugely sceptical of assertions about a DAC you would not like with firmware 2.1.0 turning into an unbeatable giant killer DAC with firmware version 2.0.2, but that's just me.

does anyone have a theory as to why there are so many pwds, for sale, given the availability of upgrades ??

Edorr, no reason to be skeptical or to blindly believe my assertions. You can buy an SD card reader at Radio Shack or Best Buy for under $10 and then try each firmware version yourself.

But I am not the only one who notices substantial differences in sound quality among different versions of the firmware. PS Audio's own community forum has a thread on the subject. The vast majority of owners who contributed to that thread preferred 2.0.2 pretty strongly to version 2.1.0. Similarly, Head-Fi has a massive thread about the Perfect Wave DAC, and toward the end, a number of people stated that they preferred the sound of the original MK1 DAC to the MK2 upgrade, finding the latter to be too bright and fatiguing for headphone listening. These folks were told to try 2.0.2 in place of 2.1.0. They then reported back that they were very happy with the upgrade once they had installed 2.0.2.

Mrtennis, I have no idea why so many Perfect Wave DACs have come up for sale here in the last year or two. The most benign explanation is that the Perfect Wave DAC had a very high market share after it was first introduced, so it naturally represents a large share of used sales now. The other possibility is that a fair number of owners are not happy with sound quality or with the complexity of setting up the Bridge + NAS + eLyric, and want something simpler or cheaper. Unfortunately, Audiogon provides a regular reminder that digital equipment is a lousy investment.

So what firmware is loaded in the original MK I version of this dac?Is it the 2.0.2 you preferred ,or something else.Also how can you identify what firmware your dac has?Considering pulling the plug on both PS units (dac& trans.).Seems like the Mk I would be be to my liking,but then there's the firmware you prefer that might suit my tastes better.
Thanks,
Den

Mcondon, as you may know from reading through the PSA forums, the only difference between FW 2.0.2 and 2.0.3 was essentially enabling a flag so that pre-emphasized CDs could be properly decoded. If one tries to play a pre-emphasized CD with 2.0.2 it will not decode properly. Other than that they *supposed* to be identical. :-)

I personally have not noticed any significant differences between these two - unlike either of these and 2.1.0. Having said that, the whole issue of sonic differences between FW versions with the PWD is too tough to call. I would not contradict anyone who felt they heard a difference between 2.0.2 and 2.0.3. Paul McGowan and the PSA development team have been dissecting the sound difference problem for a while. I've tried all of them and actually prefer 2.2.0 (which is what is being shipped with the Mk.II upgrade right now), but my system has a detailed yet warm characteristic that may be a better balance for this version than 2.0.2 or .3.

The downside of the 2.0.2/2.0.3 verssions is they do not work completely correctly in NativeX mode. So there's a tradeoff there. IMO NativeX provides greater sonic benefit (in my system) than whatever those versions can add to the sound I'm already getting.