Arcam rpac. Quick review

[kusum65]

Ive been looking for a headphone Amp for my Denon hd2000s and went through a few before i got a hold of the Arcam unit.

I had the HRT headstreamer which worked but controling the volume from the pc just didnt work for me. Then i got hold of the FiiO e17 which sounded good and had great functionality. Unfortunatly i got through 2 faulty ones before i gave up on it.

So now i have the Arcam and have been using it for the past week. I am going to miss the FiiO and its various outputs/inputs especially the way it worked with my ipod. But the arcam has better SQ and boy does it have headroom. This thing can go loud and keep its composure. It also appears to have no background noise , i forget im listening to a crappy notebook run of the mains.

If anyone is considering this unit i would say dont hesitate in giving it a go. My sennheiser 25s benefit as well with a much better bass response. Its a cool little unit.

 

[dalethorn]

Good tip - Quadpatch also likes it:

http://noblehifi.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/arcam-rpac-review.html

 

[quadpatch]

Hey another happy Arcam rPAC customer! This should help push Jason over the edge

I echo your thoughts about the sound quality, it does great things to bass and soundstage! and agree that if you are toying with the idea of getting the Arcam, just do it!

I didn't have any issues with the E17 though, I'm quite shocked that you went through two of them! I bet that put you off them for life! I have been having issues with my rPAC on Spotify (it crashes and makes a hissing noise after a couple of minutes). I took it to work today to test it and it played all day fine while on Spotify so it's deffinitely got something to do with my home PC and the software/hardware together - weird!

Maybe you didn't have your E17 working for very long but with the gain boost it will go louder than the rPAC. The rPAC struggles a bit for volume on my 600ohm Beyerdynamic DT880, that's not exactly surprising though.

 

[quadpatch]

Good tip - Quadpatch also likes it:

http://noblehifi.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/arcam-rpac-review.html

Thanks Dale, you beat me

 

[Jason36]

I dont need pushing over the edge Quadpatch

I have decided that the rPac is the portable DAC / AMP I am going for

should hopefully have it eary next week and seeing as all my headphones are fairly low impedence and easy to drive I am expecting god things from it. :dance:

 

[quadpatch]

Hey congrats! Please let us know what you think of it with your headphones, not that I have any doubts that you'll love it

You certainly won't have any problems with volumes. The rPAC will still drive the DT880, just not to ear-bleedingly loud, or quite enough for classical, but for most things it's fine.

 

[kusum65]

I did like the E17. The first one worked for a month but then the output socket started to cut out on one channel. The replacement didnt even charge. Shame , great design.

Never had any problem with spotify. That must be annoying.

 

[dalethorn]

The rPac should sound a lot better than the E17. My Headstreamer, Audioengine D1, and Dragonfly all sound significantly better than my E17.

 

[kusum65]

I tought the e17 was fine but the arcam sounds better most definetly.

 

[Ben123]

Im also looking at the rpac. I've looked at the fiio but yes quite a few people reporting build quality issues on @mazon (but im sure if you get a good one you will be ok). I could do with someone who has done a rpac comparison with a beresford dac which i have and has a built in headphone amplifier - and a good one too. It has the ability to deafen me on my akg 450's quite easily and sounds great.

As for quadpatchs problem with his pc, i would suggest getting a mains powered usb hub to sit between the rpac and the pc so the rpac has its own supply. From what ive read this cleans up a lot of problems with usb and dacs/headphone ampifiers etc. I ended up switching to optical on my dac because of usb problems but i appreciate usb is the only option with the rpac.

 

[dalethorn]

As for quadpatchs problem with his pc, i would suggest getting a mains powered usb hub to sit between the rpac and the pc so the rpac has its own supply. From what ive read this cleans up a lot of problems with usb and dacs/headphone ampifiers etc. I ended up switching to optical on my dac because of usb problems but i appreciate usb is the only option with the rpac.

I don't have any problems with my USB-powered mini-DACs, since I fixed certain things. One is, I turn off services like Skype before listening, because even if you put Skype on amoeba priority and Foobar2000 (for example) on RealTime, Skype still interrupts. So it's best to close all of that. Then I use WASAPI (event) as output preference, which gives the best performance for me.

 

[quadpatch]

As for quadpatchs problem with his pc, i would suggest getting a mains powered usb hub to sit between the rpac and the pc so the rpac has its own supply.

I could try this actually but it's not a fix that I need because my desktop PC is normally plugged into the Yulong D100 mkII, I was only pointing it out to illustrate that the Arcam is not the most reliable DAC out there. I've had other issues with it on different computers too, not as annoying as the more constant issues I had with the iBasso D7, but most DAC/amps have given me no issues at all.

 

[dalethorn]

If you have a USB-powered DAC, you would do better with battery power than mains power, like the Mophies or the Kingrex Upower box. For desktop use this is OK, but for laptops it's just too many boxes and cables.

Edit: For ultimate convenience, you could use a Dragonfly and laptop and eliminate all cables except the headphone.

 

[Anonymous]

Can I ask what setting bit-depth do you run the Arcam rPac on please? Some people think there is no benefit of 96000 Hz, and indeed, makes it a 'drier' sound, unless you have HD playback in 24-bit? Any thoughts appreciated.

 

[quadpatch]

Can I ask what setting bit-depth do you run the Arcam rPac on please? Some people think there is no benefit of 96000 Hz, and indeed, makes it a 'drier' sound, unless you have HD playback in 24-bit? Any thoughts appreciated.

I'm not sure if the Arcam properly supports 16bit, if I try to run bit-perfect audio to it the software wont send a signal @16bit and forces the audio to be up'd to 24bit. The sample rate doesn't get altered though as 44.1khz seemed to output fine. This was true of Foobar and JRiver.

I'm not quite sure what you're asking there thoough, Are you asking if 96khz works without 24bit? or are you asking about HD audio in general?

 

[Anonymous]

I'm wondering if you should set the bit depth to the recording, i.e. CD would be 44.1? Any higher resolution may be lost, or does it not matter? I've also been reading about WASAPI vs. Direct Sound via iTunes and wondered which one you guys use, if you use iTunes of course. If not, is foobar any good? Thank you.

 

[dalethorn]

I'm not exactly sure how any particular DAC operates (in spite of any claims by the mfr. or users), but I set my computer to output 24 bits and 96 khz through the USB and let the DAC adjust automatically. I'll be darned if I'm going to manually change settings for each track. My Dragonfly changes to the appropriate color for the data rate of each track, so I assume Dragonfly knows what to do vis-a-vis 16 or 24 bits.

 

[quadpatch]

I'm wondering if you should set the bit depth to the recording, i.e. CD would be 44.1? Any higher resolution may be lost, or does it not matter? I've also been reading about WASAPI vs. Direct Sound via iTunes and wondered which one you guys use, if you use iTunes of course. If not, is foobar any good? Thank you.

Ah OK I get what you mean now. WASAPI* will allow bit-perfect audio transfer to your DAC. This will make sure that the completely un-altered digital audio stream of your music, and nothing else, makes it's way to the DAC. This means that no windows audio filters are applied and no other audio (Windows bleeps or YouTube videos or anything) will be played. This also means that the bit depth and sample rates will remain intact (be un-altered). So with WASAPI enabled there will be no need to change the bit depth or sample rates in your operating system, they will dynamically change when you play the audio.

* (Foobar also has 'ASIO' or 'Kernal Streaming' bit-perfect modes (plugins), but WASAPI is the newest and best though)

If you don't use one of the bit-perfect audio transfer methods (mentioned above) and you play anything above 16/44.1 (CD Quality) then Windows will down-sample it back down to CD quality when it sends it to the DAC (This is the Windows default setting). You can change Windows to 24/96 if you want but then all the CD quality files that you play will be up-sampled to 24/96, which is not ideal.

I hear that getting bit-perfect audio with iTunes on Windows is a pain. It seems that since iTunes 10.5 Quicktime is no longer integrated and this has broken WASAPI / bit-perfect support. This is not true if you're running iTunes on a MAC of course, so like usual they are just screwing people over that don't 'conform'. Which is also why iTunes also doesn't support FLAC - pure evil!

Foobar's WASAPI works fine but JRiver's is slightly better but is going to cost you. I use both, Foobar is fine if you don't want to pay, it looks a little bland compared to iTunes / JRiver so it depends if that matters to you.

 

[Anonymous]

Dale and Quad. thanks very much for this. Can I ask how to set the ASIO in foobar please? Also, very interested in which headphones you guys would recommend with the rPac and a Vivid Technologies V1 (great machine). In the past I've had Grado SR125s, too brash for me; Senn HD600s - overpriced; ATH M50, not enough detail. However, I love my AKG 450s but wanted a full size, over ear with the same presentation and bass. Any thoughts gratefully received.

 

[quadpatch]

You're welcome OneBoxSystem. You know what, I think Dale will throw in a recommendation for the SoundMAGIC HP100, from what he says about it that seems like a contender for your next headphone. I haven't heard it yet but should get to review it soon so if you're patient I will report back, but there are a few reviews of that one floating about. I wonder if one of the older Beyerdynamic might suit you. Since you mention detail I might recommend the AKG K701 but that might also be a bit brash for you.

As for ASIO, wouldn't you rather try WASAPI? or are you on Win XP? The latter is downloadable as a plugin from the foobar website, I would link you but I'm on my tablet.

 

[dalethorn]

Dale and Quad. thanks very much for this. Can I ask how to set the ASIO in foobar please? Also, very interested in which headphones you guys would recommend with the rPac and a Vivid Technologies V1 (great machine). In the past I've had Grado SR125s, too brash for me; Senn HD600s - overpriced; ATH M50, not enough detail. However, I love my AKG 450s but wanted a full size, over ear with the same presentation and bass. Any thoughts gratefully received.

On the headphone, since you mentioned not enough detail with the M50 and that you enjoyed the K450 (which, like the M50, is soft in the treble for the most part), I'm thinking no to the HP100, which goes to the opposite end (bright) of the tone curve. So what's a good upgrade from the two you mentioned? My first thought is the Senn Amperior, or possibly (not sure) the HD25-1-II which I haven't heard. The Amperior is on-ear, but it's the right sound I think. The v-moda M80 is leaner, so not as good a comparison to what you mentioned, and it's also on-ear but not in the way of the Amperior, which I much prefer. If you have big ££££, the Beyer T5p looks interesting to me. Down lower on the price scale, the GMP 8.35D has a friendly, warm and slightly dark sound, but it's ugly to look at.

I tried ASIO with Foobar2000 a hundred different ways, to no avail. Now I use WASAPI (event) with all my DACs.

 

[Anonymous]

Thanks again. I will try that plug in. Food for thought on those headphones. I will report in once I've decided. Can I throw in the mix the Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro; 250 Ohm?[/b]

 

[quadpatch]

Thanks again. I will try that plug in. Food for thought on those headphones. I will report in once I've decided. Can I throw in the mix the Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro; 250 Ohm?[/b]

Yeah you might like that one, I have two friends who swear by them, although one has the 80 Ohm and the other has the 600 Ohm. I really like my DT880, it's semi open and a brighter presentation than the 770 but sharper details and with a better soundstage.

The Sennheiser HD25-1 II was OK to me but the VModa M80 had nicer bass texture and was less harsh sounding, I'm not sure if the m80 is different enough over the m50 that you dislike and both are on-ear type.

One more thing: you say the Sennheiser HD600 is overpriced, but I saw it on Amazon for £210 recently, is that still too much?

 

[Anonymous]

I used to have the Senn HD600 and wasn't too enamoured to be honest, even in full hifi set up. I'm now using a PC based system 95% of the time and would stretch to £200 or so, if it justified the difference. I read that the DT770 80 Ohm has more bass and is less bright, which may suit as you say.....can be got for £120 or so too. Might be worth a punt....on ear or even open fine as long as they don't leak too much.

 

[Anonymous]

Any more ideas for headphones for me please?