FOCAL ARCHE
French company Focal makes loudspeakers and headphones. Some of its headphones are pretty high-end. As are some of its loudspeakers. So the company has lately taken to producing high-end electronics to drive them. For example, the Focal Astral 16 A/V processor and amplifier runs to more than $30,000. Here we’re spending some time with the more modestly priced Focal Arche DAC and headphone amplifier.
THE EQUIPMENT
In one way the Focal Arche looks very different. It comes with a curved section of metal. The straighter end has a home amongst the heat sink slots on top of the unit. Install it there and it forms a stylish headphone stand for your Focal (or other) headphones.
Apart from that, the layout of the unit is fairly conventional for this kind of product: deeper than it is wide, a flat well-built (over 4kg) slab of electronics.
On the front is a blue-on-black display screen. To its left is a 6.35mm stereo headphone socket. And to the left of that is a 4-pin XLR socket for balanced headphones. To the right of the display is a combination rotary control/press button. The principal use of that is for output level and switching the unit in and out of standby. But it also invokes the main menu, in which turning the wheel takes you through the options.
On the back panel are the line outputs: a pair of unbalanced RCA sockets and a pair of balanced XLR sockets. The inputs are also at the back. There’s a USB Type-B for plugging into your computer, an optical digital audio input, a coaxial digital audio input and a pair of RCA sockets for analogue inputs. The USB Type-A socket is only there for upgrading the firmware of the unit. As we write, the Focal Arche is on its original factory-installed firmware and no newer version is available for download. The regular
