I did not see your post as a criticism (not at all), but I did felt obligated to explain why I suggested such a price range because I thought others might have also felt my proposed prices were a bit high.
Of course, I would like to pay less, but unless you do it yourself, there is, like you said, no free lunch 
.
Letās say the latest software is out. But later, as Ted continued to work, he discovered something new.
He said wawww, with that the DS sounds even better than TSS.
Will we be able to get this as an update? 
@tedsmith @Paul
If Ted were to stumble upon something for the DS, we would absolutely release it. I wouldnāt hold your breath for this though.
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Spoken (written) like a dedicated employee. Nicely done! 
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This year was the longest March of the century 
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Hello, as April is approaching, can we get some hint of what awaits us with the new software?
@tedsmith
Am I the only one waiting so excitedly? 
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Iām waiting with some excitement tempered by the dissappointing information that itās the last one. As the last one, Iām okay with delay because I like to delay the inevitable lousy aspects of good things. Really sorry there will be no more after this.
Yup. Itās going to be the best yet. Darren sent a long sleepless night listening in awe. The last mountaintop, Sunlight, awaits.
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Paul, will this last one be symultaneous or will f.i. the DSjr version come a little bit later?
As mentioned above the new feature is quad rate DSD input over I2S (DoP or native DSD) and 24bit 705.6kHz PCM comes along for free. (192k is still the highest non 44.1 multiple available.)
There have been multiple changes to increase sound quality. With each release we build and listen to software to test various non-sound related changes. Itās almost always the case than one of the early builds grabs peopleās hearts with the sound quality, but canāt be released because something was disabled for testing or something got broken. When the release is ready technically it usually doesnāt sound as good as the favorite build before that. This happened to us with the first software released after the initial DS shipped years ago and also to most releases up to and including this one.
Since I know exactly what changed in each FPGA I send to PS Audio I sometimes know exactly what I did that hurt sound quality. Thatās fortunate since it shows me exactly where some possible improvements can be made. This time after four versions that got back piece by piece the quality of the favorite version we got one that seems to have no bugs and seems to sound at least as good as any other version (ever). Like many previous releases the main thing I worked on was when in time various things happened. For this final release I realized that there were some features of the internal PLLs in the FPGA that I hadnāt been utilizing that give finer control of clock timing.
I donāt know exactly how to describe the sound quality differences, but they are obvious and most just donāt want to install older releases again to A/B, thereās no need. The bass is (once again) clearer and more obviously correct (the change is in the ādamn!ā category.) Over all tone is better, the top is more open. All of which is to be expected with a quieter background (lower digital noise) and lower jitter.
I also think Iāve killed off the gremlin that caused Windom to go south overnight every once in a while. It was holding back Windom a little all of the time so itās fix is welcome in more than one way.
Youāll like the new release.
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I am always amazed at how bass can continually improve with each addition of a component, room treatment, cable, interconnect, firmware (while using the same speakers) . On the other hand, I expect improvements to the mid and high end, staging, separation, etc. when those changes are made. Time for me to adjust my expectations.
I am looking forward to the new release.
Note: I never experienced problems with Windom, (except for some preaching from Mark 
).
Edit: I forgot to say thank you to Ted and PSA for the coming āfree componentā.
Your new firmwares have always been a real treat for me.
Thank you!!!
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Hi @tedsmith, in your last paragraph, are you saying you have identified and fixed the issue where it can take many installation attempts to get the DS to sound correct. Windom (for my DS) was the worst of recent releases for this.
Fantastic! I waited dearly for a more open top endā¦and an improved bass is also extremely welcome!
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Very encouraging!
There are multiple things that kept the DS software update process from being as smooth as we all know it could be. But, yes Windom was in a class by itself.
It seems that a part of the problem is that as our DSās (and SD cards and USB sticks) get older they get more tarnished connectors. At times updates wouldnāt happen correctly until the connectors had gotten cleaner by repeated insertion and extraction. Weāll try to remind people to clean their SD card (or USB stick) contacts with a pink pencil eraser and to be prepared to do a few insertions and extractions before powering on the DS.
But, yes, there was a bug in the DS FPGA in Windom that would ālet the gears slipā now and then that Iāve fixed.
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Thanks Ted, just to say, each time I used a brand new sd card, I donāt know if that means that the connections would be any less or more tarnished. Spending a good 30 minutes each time to fully format them.