When your Aurender N100H is playing unplug the USB then plug back in, or do what i have to to when i’m listening to my A&K SP1000 is to put the Arche into standby for a moment then turn it back on. That usually works for me. Shouldn’t have to do this but there is no other way for me and i have tried many ways.
Thanks, that seemed to work for the Aurender, after some delay. Obviously, this is a PITA because you can’t just start listening at the beginning of a song or album. Did you update the firmware, or did this “fix” work with the older firmware?
A separate question, how did you connect your A&K device to the Arche? From one of the headphone jacks to a splitter to analog in on the Arche? I have an SE200 but I am not sure why I would want to connect to the Arche.
My Arche is on firmware 01.01.08 which is the latest and I haven’t tried it on the old one, I was hoping someone else has tried it and could let me know. My A&K is connected in three ways to the Arche, I just chose one…USB, Toslink and phono (analogue) and the problem in connection to the Arche is the same. The best form of connection to the Arche is USB then toslink then analogue.
I just picked up my Arche a few days ago and read this entire forum but I can’t seem to find what I am looking for.
The firmware that came with my unit is:
01.01.08
Can someone tell me what version of the firmware this is. I have looked on the focal firmware update page but it only lists the name of the version not the numerical counterpart. I am running it off an ipad connected with USB and want to know if I should or need to downgrade to the earlier version to get the best audio I can get from it using Tidal Hifi.
Thanks for your help.
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The only way I’m aware of to determine the firmware version requires a Windows computer and installing the USB driver from Focal’s site:
AFAIK, the SW version in the Info panel on the Arche itself does not change if the July 2020 firmware is installed.
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I’ve owned an Arche for a few months now and I was really enjoying it. Yes I had some connection issues with my Mac USB but generally it just works.
Then I bought a pair of Koss ESP/95X from Drop. I decided to use my Arche as the DAC and preamp while evaluating them. Unfortunately I noticed a channel imbalance that could not be fully corrected for with the Koss energizer/amp volume knob so I returned them.
While waiting for their replacement I used the same RCA pre-outs with an LED level meter I bought to monitor volume levels and give a bit of a light show. Long story short, the channel imbalance appears to have been in the Arche all along! Connecting the same level meter to my Schiit Modi confirms this. I’m a noob when it comes to audio circuit design but considering the volume control is digital and there is no corresponding channel imbalance on the headphone out, I don’t understand what would cause this. Further I’m very disappointed that such a premium product left the factory like this.
Luckily it’s still under warranty but of course I’ll have to ship it to Focal for repair or replacement. I’m going to try and reconfirm, maybe with a multimeter instead of the LED meter before going through that process.
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Well I may have to eat some crow here, but rather than delete my original post I’ll own up to it in hopes that others can learn from my mistakes.
After further testing I have come to the conclusion that while the Focal Arche does seem to have a slight channel imbalance on the RCA pre-outs, it is not audible. What is happening is that the LED level meter I am using is extremely sensitive. That combined with a defective pair of Koss ESP/95X that coincidentally had the same imbalance the meter is showing made me jump to the conclusion that it was the Arche pre-outs and not the 95X themselves that caused their clearly audible imbalance.
I tried many combinations of my equipment and cables including an analog level meter that showed no imbalance. However I think the most conclusive experiment was hooking the LED level meter up to my Schiit Magni 3+ pre-outs. When the Magni is fed from my Schiit Modi, it displays the LR channels in balance most of the time but sometimes the L channel displays 4-5 LEDs higher as I turn the volume knob. When the Magni is fed from my Focal Arche it displays the L channel 4-5 LEDs lower most of the time but sometimes the LR channels display perfectly in balance as I turn the volume knob. Apparently the LED meter is so sensitive it can pick up the variable LR levels as I adjust the analog volume knob. These differences are not audible.
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Virtually everything has some level of channel imbalance, and this can be noticeable at very low volumes. If it doesn’t interfere at normal listening volumes, it’s probably best to not dwell on it. Vendors also have a tolerance range, as their components vary slightly too. If you move into tube amps, be prepared for radical performance shifts and changes too. Amps with one tube leave little room for variance, but many amps have 2, 4, or more tubes that can go wrong.
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Mine arrives today and I too had difficulty understanding the English (directions for driver and FW installation). Im gonna try what Tord said, hopefully it will be flawless.
Bear in mind I am not advocating for anyone to do any firmware updates on the Arche.
I used it with the original factory firmware from when the unit was first released. I had zero issues with it in that state. I have not used the newer firmwares, and that seems to be where various issues have started to crop up.
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Agree with this completely
After reading the issues regarding FW update on this site Im really hesitant and tend to not want to fix whats not broken. I do need to install the USB driver though. Hopefully thats problem free.
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I too agree. The firmware update was supposed to fix connectivity issues with Linux devices, of which Aurender music servers are examples. I could not connect to my Aurender with the original firmware, the updated firmware did not fix the issue. I was able to get the two devices to connect after updating the firmware and then disconnecting and reconnecting the USB cable. Would I have been able to get them to connect without the firmware update and disconnecting and then reconnecting the cable? I have no idea. I have more to report on the Aurender connection issues, which I will describe in a separate post.
Arche discontinued…
Is this news or is it just me?
I’ve not heard anything official, but it is listed as “discontinued” from various sources (e.g. B&H).
I head that a few weeks from my local shop as well. Ended up getting a demo unit severely discount because of it. I also heard that Naim has a dedicated headphone streamer coming out as a replacement but there is no MSRP or release date set yet. The only downfall inheard was that it does not have any inputs; it’s only going to be a streamer.
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If it is discontinued i wonder if we’ll ever get that much needed update.
FWIW the Arche is not in the latest (02-2021) headphones price list. https://www.focalnaimamerica.com/
Definitely confusing.
