There’s a first time for everything 
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How reassuring to read your and ctrlm’s posts about the Clears needing a lot of adjustment. My experience is the same as yours. I was really disappointed in them. I don’t have an easy way to use EQ on my Naim HiFi system so I don’t use them. I am happier with a pair of Hifiman Ananda’s although I sometimes wish for a little more ‘sparkle’ at the top on some material.
It’s always good to hear some validation, especially if you’re a bit underwhelmed!
Acknowledging quickly that this is actually the Arche thread (oops) I have found them to improve greatly.
I have given them about 60 hours of burn in total with another 5 or so hours of active listening the last few days, using the Arche with Hybrid mode. I haven’t noticed much more change from the burn in after about hour 20, whatever was holding them back OOTB it feels like I’m now past that.
What I did stumble upon were some pretty great EQ settings from Oratory1990 on Reddit. If you do find a way to try some Parametric EQ (I use Roon) then give these settings a go.
I’d be fascinated to know of you like them more afterwards. I certainly do!
Apologies for hijacking the thread. I might get the Clears out again. Unfortunately my Synology storage is not compatible with Roon so I can’t try that. it would be an expensive option too. There doesn’t seem an easy way to have EQ using my Naim Uniti Star unless anyone has any ideas.
Agreed the oratory1990 Clear preset sounds great. I’m working on an EQ preset for the Clear of my own too. As long as you don’t push the bass too far, the Clear respond really well to EQ.
hi everyone, i got the dac last week! it’s awesome. Butz i found a problem that my device can’t set to 384khz. How could i fix it, thanks advanced !
Your unit is probably running the “latest” firmware. That introduced a bug that prevented playback over 192 kHz (the unit doesn’t advertise that rate as being available to the USB host anymore).
To fix it, you’d have to find the prior firmware version (which has its own issues; such as problems with Linux/Android devices, and periodic USB disconnections), and flash that onto the unit.
I don’t know which version Focal have on their support site anymore.
Pretty sure all the details can be found in this thread, however.
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Could I ask what is the better choice in this level? I want get a dac+amp for my headphone.
I sold my Focal Ache, when I discovered that they are not updating the firmware, even though there are bugs.
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I don’t know what to recommend here.
Partly because I don’t know what headphones you have, what your preferred sonic signature is nor your musical tastes or budget (I’m assuming you didn’t pay the original MSRP for the Arche). And partly because I’ve just not been paying attention to things at this end of the market for a while.
You’re probably best off asking here, and including the information above when you do so.
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Come to use the Arche last night and had to do the usual switch on off about three times to get it to connect to the source. Five minutes later the sound went off all of a sudden and did the switching on and off again, but this time it won’t give sound. On the display it shows 48 Khz so it has seen the device. I have just sent my Focal Utopia headphones in for repair for replacement drivers for the second time in 2.5 years (Arche is same age) and now this has happened. Would i buy anything Focal again ?..NO !! As far as i’m concerned it’s just a load of junk. Why Naim Audio ever went into partnership with them i’ll never know, i not a happy man. Rant over.
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I sympathize. However this is not a Naim collaboration. The Arche was done by Micromega, who subsequently went out of business. Hence the lack of support from Focal.
Sorry this happened. Definitely a bummer to have to send stuff out for repair, but it’s nice that Focal has a good, 5 year warranty that they honor without issues. My Utopia had a dead driver when I first bought it, but no issues since on the driver. I had some issues with the ear pads a few months ago, but they took care of it expediently, and with no cost to me. It’s an occasional headache, but I somewhat view owning high-end audio gear (looking particularly at you, tube amps) like owning an exotic sports car - you’ll have more frequent repairs, but damn is it worth it 
(and no, I don’t personally own an exotic sports car)
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Unfortunately the Arche has only 2 years warranty and it’s out of that by about 6 months.
Sorry - was referring to the Utopia. Yeah, I agree that they really botched the Arch.
The Arche has managed to come back to life (still have to turn on and off a few times to get it to go), but it has a intermittent fault in that it looses the right channel audio (there is a ash like interference noise). Don’t know if this has to do with the bug or it could be a dry joint on the circuit board. Have you ever had regrets in buying things and wish you never did ?
Have you tried contacting Focal about it? If it’s really just a total screw up on their part, it’s not impossible they try to fix it for you. At the very least, maybe they’ll fix it and you’ll have to cover the cost of the repair, but if they really fix it, it’s a very capable unit, and may be worth it.
Even if you’re emotionally over the unit, if you can fix it for less than used cost, you can sell it and recoup a bit of cash and get something else. I personally find the Chord DACs (e.g. Hugo 2) to pair beautifully with the Utopia.
You tried powering off through the physical power switch on the back, unplugging the power cord, plugging back in, and then powering on again, right? I’ve had static electricity buildup do weird things like this on other equipment.
That’s a good point, i have a Naim Atom HE and i use it a lot, but after about 2 months or so the audio drops out now and then. The remote function becomes slow to react and then totally unresponsive. A total disconnect from the mains or a reset on the unit brings it back to normal (some sort of cache build up ?). Unfortunately in this case it hasn’t worked with Arche. I disconnected the mains from the Arche overnight and i got it going, after 10 mins it lost audio in the right channel for about a min but then came back, but now after about 30 mins it’s gone off again.
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Finally got my Arche back from Naim support but his is not my original one, naim gave me a replacement and said the original has gone back to France. It’s not a new one but it is in good condition. Lets see how we get on with this one. Great guys at Naim support.
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