Modding the PS Audio Directstream DAC MK1 and MK2

Your welcome.  You should give Firmware Snowmass 3.0.5 a try.  With it the MK1 will sound even better than the new MK2 with our transformers installed. It's the most musical sounding firmware ever.

We are deciding if we will even offer transformers for the MK2 any longer.  It doesn't deserve our transformers. PS Audio is causing us more headaches with all the flaws the MK2 exhibits. It's not easy telling customers that they received a bum unit that they need to send it back for a replacement unit before we would even consider installing transformers. 😞

The graphs are of interest; however, difficult to correlate to what one will hear. I found Mr. Richards numerical assessment of the sound quality improvement (see below) to be spot on. From my experience doing multi thousand dollar upgrades a worthwhile incremental upgrade of 1 is an excellent upgrade. For the MK1 the Vocm and APS nickel core transformers sound quality improvement going from a 6 to 9 is in line with my experience. Not a subtle upgrade. So happy. If I had not experienced, I simply would not believe the level of performance at this price point. Look forward to hearing from others with the MK2 to see if their assessment is similar.  

“We feel the new firmware made a large improvement in sound quality.

If I had to put numbers on it from 1-10

Stock MK1 6

Modded MK1 9

Stock MK2 with old firmware 8

Stock MK2 with new firmware 9

Modded MK2 with new firmware 10”

That older info was posted before the massive final was released and with sunlight firmware installed in the MK1. With ether the current  massive or massive beta installed on the modded MK2 and Snowmass 3.0.5 installed on the modded MK1 we feel now the MK1 sounds better than the MK2 even with the better sounding beta massive installed..

Here is our new assessment.

“We feel the new firmware made a large improvement in sound quality.

If I had to put numbers on it from 1-10

Stock MK1 6

Modded MK1 9

Stock MK2 with old firmware 7

Stock MK2 with new firmware 8

Modded MK2 with new massive firmware 9

Modded MK1 with Snowmass  10"

OK... We have only 3 pairs of MK2 cores left and will not be offering them any longer after they are gone.