Focal Arche: Anyone compared to other options in its price range?

[NCUS]

I also keep mine on 24/7 and it operates fine. During the past 2 months it's been dry, so dry that when I use a key to unlock my front door I can see static electricity sparks off my key. This also hasn't affected my Arche. Not sure if this matters but I put metal floor protectors under the spikes. Also I use a bluesound node 2i over toslink rather than USB or coax.

 

[rickydenim]

I have mine at work connected to my laptop which I shutdown every night. On the Arche I have sleep mode turned off but it doesn't matter if I turn the Arche on first or the laptop, I don't get sound. I need to unplug the USB, power off Arche then plugin and turn on. Then it's sorted.
Also noticed with Arche off the USB cable connection is being picked up on the laptop. Don't think I've ever seen that before?

 

[supermj]

I have mine at work connected to my laptop which I shutdown every night. On the Arche I have sleep mode turned off but it doesn't matter if I turn the Arche on first or the laptop, I don't get sound. I need to unplug the USB, power off Arche then plugin and turn on. Then it's sorted.
Also noticed with Arche off the USB cable connection is being picked up on the laptop. Don't think I've ever seen that before?

I wish mine would connect as easy as that, i would be happily contented with that.

 

[ctrlm]

I got my Audiophile Ninja balanced cable yesterday. It took 5 weeks to get to Perth from the USA

It is a very nice cable and it drapes very nicely wherever it goes, unlike the rubbery things that everyone seems to supply lately with their headphones. I'm loving my Sundaras with it plugged into my A90, they need a little more juice than my other headphones.

So I decided to get out the Arche and give it a try on the balanced output. I was surprised.......I assumed the Arche was fully balanced but the balanced output was the same volume as the single ended?

 

[iamoneagain]

I got my Audiophile Ninja balanced cable yesterday. It took 5 weeks to get to Perth from the USA

It is a very nice cable and it drapes very nicely wherever it goes, unlike the rubbery things that everyone seems to supply lately with their headphones. I'm loving my Sundaras with it plugged into my A90, they need a little more juice than my other headphones in .

So I decided to get out the Arche and give it a try on the balanced output. I was surprised.......I assumed the Arche was fully balanced but the balanced output was the same volume as the single ended?

They claim it’s fully balanced with two dacs used in mono. I haven’t compared volume to using single ended since only have stock as single ended and would sound different.

Found this

True to its audiophile aspirations, the amplifier section is a completely dual-mono, pure Class A, fully balanced design that provides up to 1 watt/channel at 1 kHz for headphones with an input impedance of less than 32 ohms.

https://www.techhive.com/article/3601675/focal-arche-headphone-dac-amp-review.html

 

[rickydenim]

I got my Audiophile Ninja balanced cable yesterday. It took 5 weeks to get to Perth from the USA

It is a very nice cable and it drapes very nicely wherever it goes, unlike the rubbery things that everyone seems to supply lately with their headphones. I'm loving my Sundaras with it plugged into my A90, they need a little more juice than my other headphones in .

So I decided to get out the Arche and give it a try on the balanced output. I was surprised.......I assumed the Arche was fully balanced but the balanced output was the same volume as the single ended?

I was going to ask you today if you had received it yet! I ordered one too and still waiting for delivery to Melbourne. I did read that the volume was not different on this input however Focal do state they recommend using this due to the fully balanced implementation. Volume aside, any notable differences?

This week I got my Oyaide D+ Class A USB cable to use with the Arche. I wasn't going in with any preconceived expectations that SQ would be substantially improved - I just wanted a better quality cable ultimately as I was using an 'el cheapo cable prior.
My initial impression was there is actually a noticeable improvement! I've now had 2 days with it and I'm going to do some A/B testing with the old cable today to confirm.

 

[ctrlm]

I was going to ask you today if you had received it yet! I ordered one too and still waiting for delivery to Melbourne. I did read that the volume was not different on this input however Focal do state they recommend using this due to the fully balanced implementation. Volume aside, any notable differences?

I didn't really analyse it due to time constraints, I'll have more time this weekend.

 

[ctrlm]

I can't help myself - I'm persevering with the Arche at my desktop along with the Topping D70/A90 combo. I like having both options with the Topping's superior clarity & separation vs the Arche's slightly laid back & warmer presentation. There is no "better" in this comparison - just different.

I bought two of these adapters that arrived a couple days ago from Audiophonics:

The idea being that the 5V from your computer is blocked and an outside power source is used instead. I have a spare 5V LPS lying around so that is supplying the USB power. Interestingly I have discovered that the D70 USB input only needs the 5V for the initial handshake and once connected, I can then disconnect the power and the only connection to the iMac is data + ground. Conversely, the Arche requires a constant 5V supply and if I disconnect the power the connection is broken. This actually is an ideal situation as once I get the D70 working I can leave the adapter in place with no power and use the LPS on the Arche exclusively.

So, is it snake oil? I don't think so. There is a definite difference in the high mids & highs, I guess I would describe it as smoother, less grainy, more natural? Anyway.....more listening to do

 

[ASIN]

Interesting, what power conditioning are you using? I discovered that even using power conditioning, I still get a better sound when I disconnect everything else on that circuit, so only my Melco and Arche are connected, this solved a slight sibilance problem I had on certain old recordings.

 

[iamoneagain]

I can't help myself - I'm persevering with the Arche at my desktop along with the Topping D70/A90 combo. I like having both options with the Topping's superior clarity & separation vs the Arche's slightly laid back & warmer presentation. There is no "better" in this comparison - just different.

I bought two of these adapters that arrived a couple days ago from Audiophonics:



The idea being that the 5V from your computer is blocked and an outside power source is used instead. I have a spare 5V LPS lying around so that is supplying the USB power. Interestingly I have discovered that the D70 USB input only needs the 5V for the initial handshake and once connected, I can then disconnect the power and the only connection to the iMac is data + ground. Conversely, the Arche requires a constant 5V supply and if I disconnect the power the connection is broken. This actually is an ideal situation as once I get the D70 working I can leave the adapter in place with no power and use the LPS on the Arche exclusively.



So, is it snake oil? I don't think so. There is a definite difference in the high mids & highs, I guess I would describe it as smoother, less grainy, more natural? Anyway.....more listening to do

My streamer actually has a power off switch but as you said, the Arche doesn’t work at all without steady 5v. But when I got the linear power supply I noticed smoother vocals, more depth, and bass improved. Seemed to remove any last traces of brightness or edginess. The Focal Arche hooked directly to the intel Nuc roon core with usb is just ok. Not sure I’d be praising like I do if not for the Link II streamer.

 

[ASIN]

You know you have a good amp when the discussion is how to get the last drop of aural perfection and is not discussing possible upgrades. Congratulations Focal, seems you have some happy customers. Now please can you upgrade the firmware?

 

[rickydenim]

My streamer actually has a power off switch but as you said, the Arche doesn’t work at all without steady 5v. But when I got the linear power supply I noticed smoother vocals, more depth, and bass improved. Seemed to remove any last traces of brightness or edginess. The Focal Arche hooked directly to the intel Nuc roon core with usb is just ok. Not sure I’d be praising like I do if not for the Link II streamer.

What linear power supply are you using?

 

[iamoneagain]

I’m using the one built for the Link II.

https://stackaudio.co.uk/product/link-linear-psu-18v-1-5amp/

I bought the Link II because thought usb sounded better with the Chord Dave/mscaler and had no issues with 192k files. The mscaler and Dave has weird optical inputs where nothing snapped in and had trouble going over 96k. Also thought soundstage had more depth with usb over optical.

Now optical is not recommended on most dacs outside of Chord, so usb is more versatile. The same improvements the Link II made with the Chord setup are there with the Focal Arche. Adding linear power supply had same effect like adding battery to mscaler. This eliminates RFI and brings all those benefits of reducing edginess, smoother sounded, depth and bass. Think it was a Dave thread where someone described the effect of RFI removal much better than I can.

 

[iamoneagain]

I finally got around to testing HQPlayer with the Focal Arche. I’m still using the Link II as the streamer and roon but having roon output to HQPlayer. I’ve went with sinc -m NS9 setting and getting excellent results. It basically takes the already great sound of the Focal Arche but gives in more resolution. This gets it closer, as far I can remember, to what I had with Chord Dave/mscaler.

I always said I enjoyed the Focal Arche just as much be never said it was as resolving. I tried roon upsampling with precise linear and it was more resolving but was less enjoyable. Didn’t like what it did to the vocals and didn’t want to listen as long. Took away the Arche’s magic. HQPlayer, so far, seems to keep things musical while adding resolution.

 

[iamoneagain]

This was posted in the Focal Utopia forum. This looks it’s the replacement for the Focal Arche. And if you search for the Focal Arche you’ll see it’s not for sale anymore.

If I didn’t already have a great streamer, I’d be interested. I like that it’s an all in one device and with Spotify hifi coming later this year, wouldn’t need to use roon anymore, so no need for separate computer.

https://www.whathifi.com/news/naim-...h-all-new-uniti-atom-headphone-edition-system