What is the advantage in purchasing a new DSD as opposed to uprading a PWD?
None, really, other than not putting the effort into performing the upgrade.
With the upgrade, everything is replaced but for the display and the chassis.
The upgrade is easy, fun to do, and cheaper.
The advantages are you do not have to do the work, its PSA tested, and you’ll likely get better resale value.
Easy is relative. It took me 4 hours. It was fun however.
One other thing, the IR remote sensor has a wider field of view. Works much better than the PWD.
Doing the upgrade was fun and I recall spending about an hour on it. I used both the video and written instructions available which worked well. There may be some advantage in resale to buying new vs. upgrading but I’ve never found resale values on DACs after a couple years to be that high to begin with. I think it’s really great that PS Audio offers us the choice of buying new or upgrading what we have in this case. Makes me a loyal customer.