I had the gen viii series two. I sold it and bought the pwd and pwt version one at that time I did think it was better by a pretty good margin. The gen viii is a musical piece, plays smaller than the pwd. I upgraded to the series two pwd and it was even better that the first generation by a big margin, BUT only with the 2.0.2 firmware installed. I know if you bought a brand new pwd you cannot get it with the 2.0.2 firmware. Now on some people's systems they like the other firmware. You just have to hear one and go to psaudios site lots of talk there about there products.