I’ve never used Foobar, so I don’t know what you’re expecting it to do. The Arche does not support DSD playback, so I assume you’re expecting Foobar to be transcoding to PCM or something along those lines before sending to the Arche.
If you’re expecting the Arche to handle a raw DSD stream, that’s not supported.
Really appreciate your recommendations. I will try some of the software and compare it with Foobar.
What is strange is that I was able to make Foobar play for a while with one computer but not when I installed it on another computer with the same setting.
Erm, Focal’s website for the Arche states that it supports up to DSD256. It’s using AK4490 DAC chips, which are consistent with its stated 384k PCM/DSD256 limits (though technically that chip can do 768k PCM, many implementations do not). I don’t see anything about what USB controller chip it is using, however. So it may very well be that it only supports DSD over PCM (DoP), as many AK4490 solutions do…
(I don’t have an Arche, nor have I ever used one, so can’t confirm this myself.)
Crazy. I really must be mis-remembering things. When I first got my Arche I tried streaming a DSD file to it and the device completely lost its mind. It stopped seeing any input signals, even valid ones, and the condition persisted even through power cycles. I actually thought I’d bricked the device and would have to send it back, but after leaving it unplugged overnight it started working again.
I remember at the time heading to Focal’s site trying to confirm whether or not the Arche could play DSD and I never saw any mention or found any reference to DSD anywhere on the site. But, as you say, I looked just now and it’s mentioned multiple times in the tech sheet.
I’ve never successfully gotten mine to play a DSD stream and now I’m too afraid to try. But I only have one DSD file that I downloaded just to use for experimenting, so it’s not really a concern for me.
Thanks for the correction.
Not a bad deal - I assume this would work if buying from headphones.com here?
https://headphone.guru/focal-to-offer-1000-towards-the-purchase-of-a-focal-arche-amplifier/
Probably get a faster response by asking via email - info@headphones.com
Oh man, I wish I had the money to get this right now, but that’s totally not on the table for me. We have until the end of the year, so maybe. After the reviews of this, it sounds like a fantastic deal…
Yup if you’ve purchased a Clear, Utopia or Stellia in the past you can get the deal from us.
The power output seems under powered for the arche. Would this be good enough to also drive LCD-4 or Susvara? I want it for my Stellia but also interested in it for other headphones.
I feel fairly safe in saying this would not be a good pairing for the Susvara, since it’s my understanding that while it can be powered by your average-powered amp, it requires much more power to do it justice (so much so that it’s usually recommended to use speaker amps rather than headphone amps). To be transparent: I have not personally used either the Susvara nor the Arche, which is why I defer to the professionals:
Torq/Ian’s review of the Arche will go into more detail, but if you check out the brief video Andrew just posted on The HEADPHONE Show YouTube channel, he discusses that this makes a great pairing for low-impedance headphones, which occasionally don’t pair as well with much more powerful amps. You can view that here:
Oh, come on Focal…
I got an email this morning announcing a firmware update for the Arche:
After receiving feedback about compatibility issues between DAC and headphones amplifier Arche and some devices (mostly Android and Linux), we have worked on an update for Arche’s chipset.
We have done several beta-tests and we can now confirm that this update solves these compatibility issues.
So it’s an update specifically to address incompatibilities with Android and Linux.
I’ll give you three guesses what OS is required in order to load the firmware…
TempleOS?
Solaris?
IOS? ← not iOS
3 guesses?
Multics
NEXTStep
FreeBSD
I updated the firmware and that somehow screwed things up. I can’t set the Arche to 24 bit 384k Hz anymore, it’ll only go to 24 bit and 192k Hz now.
I’ve unplugged USB cable, rebooted computer, re-installed Arche USB driver, did the reset option on the Arche, nothing…Somehow once after the update I was able to set it in the properties to 24 bit 384k Hz in the Archer Properties, but setting the Arche to that caused an immediate error message and didn’t play any sound (and on the Arche it didn’t show 384k Hz either). It also didn’t show the “(Studio Quality)” in that row. After that it switched to 48k Hz until I set it again to 192k Hz (and the 384k Hz option is gone). Any idea on how to get this fixed?
Talk to Focal support?
The same thing happened to me. Had to upgrade the firmware in order to get it to work with my Android phone, but lost the 384kHz option. I wrote Focal Support about it, so am awaiting word.
Thanks so much @Torq for your detailed review of the Arche and Stellia. After reading your reviews, I pulled the trigger on the bundle with Headphones.com and they’ve been awesome every step of the way. Your review is spot on to, such great synergy. I tried a Mojo connected to the analog section and it made for a nice combo, but not large enough to make me want to deal with two units. Maybe in the future, I will evaluate a Bifrost 2 on it when I decide to go for a Lyr 3 and Bifrost 2 stack.
I thought it might be worth mentioning, I recently stopped using my Arche with my 16" MacBook Pro and moved it to my Mac Pro and the intermittent USB locking up problem has completely disappeared. Not sure what’s different between the laptop and the desktop, but the Arche has been completely stable for me for a few weeks now. I haven’t upgraded the firmware since I don’t have a convenient Windows box to run the updater, so I’m still on the release firmware.
Have you tried resetting the System Management Controller on your Macbook Pro to see if that helps out? I’ve not had the Arche long enough, but do notice the USB handshake isn’t consistent like my other DAC’s. Sometimes I need to disconnect and reconnect to establish a link. The other thing I noted, it’s not cheap USB cable friendly. Lol As for no Windows, you may need a Windows PC friend, Parallels, or Bootcamp if your Arche is a keeper.
I have lots of USB handshake issues with my Arche, seemingly random. Only way to fix it is to unplug/replug USB cable. BTW, i have a audio moon black dragon USB cable.
