Arcam rPac troubles

[ngl64]

Hi all

I've just purchased a rPac to improve my already brilliant Ruark MR1s feeding from my mid 2010 iMac.

Guess what, had the problem of the static click, then no sound when swapping apps on the Mac, namely internet radio and then iTunes.

So after much pushing of buttons on the rPac and checking Mac settings with no cure I was ready to take it back to Richer Sounds and dump my loyalty to Arcam in the bin.

However, one last try and I did notice that in the Sound preferences the Arcam was titled "ARCAM USB 1.0 Audio Out". Surely this should be USB 2.0 I thought. So, reading what someone had mentioned above and somewhere else, suggesting to unplug USB of rPac, then holding both + and - together while plugging it back in. Reopened the Sound preferences and Hey Presto! it has changed to "ARCAM USB 2.0 Audio Out" and no static click or loss of sound. Hoo-bl**dy-ray.

Note: rPac is plugged directly into back of mac not a hub.

So if you have come across this forum on your search for a solution then try this. Hope it will help someone.

Arcam hold your head in shame for not putting this in the instructions and hope you have improved your customer support as in an ever more technical hifi world some of us need help with these sorts of products.

 

[hybridauth_Google_112658120703314018098]

I recently got one of these at a reduced price, and fortunately have not run into any of these problems (on Windows 7). It's a very nice upgrade compared to the Realtek integrated audio. Even on less than ideal Logitech 2.1 speakers, I can really hear the difference.

The first thing I did was update the firmware to version 1.05 - which is said to improve compatibility with some USB chipsets. Unfortunately there is no documented Mac firmware upgrade procedure, but it can be done on Windows.

The manual is not very good at all, very minimal. It's also disheartening to read the lack of response by Arcam to customers - not what I'd expect. As already said above, the manual doesn't even mention USB mode selection. It's interesting that another undocumented feature of running in USB 2 mode (accessed by pressing + and - buttons while plugging in the DAC) is that it supports sample rates up to 192 khz in this mode - the product specifications all show 96 khz as the maximum rate.

Note that on Windows, class 2 mode requires a driver from Arcam's website. It won't be recognised without it. OSX has native support. The Windows driver enables ASIO support in suitable applications (e.g. Foobar2000 media player) for the highest quality, most direct output. I have found the ASIO driver a bit problematic on Windows 10, but works fine on 7. It likely needs to be updated, as the driver version Arcam have on their site is dated 2013.