What audio equipment do I need for an XLR mic + high impedance headphones

[Travercraig]

I have a Blue Yeti USB microphone and a Sennheiser HD 558 headset. This setup is really simple as I plug the Blue Yeti USB and the HD 558 3.5mm jack into my PC and it just works. However I’m looking to upgrade my microphone to an XLR one and my headset to something a bit more premium, probably with a higher impedance.

 

But doing a bit of research on this, it seems I may need a number of audio hardware devices such as: external sound cards, digital to analogue convertors, amplifiers, DAC/AMP combo’s, mixamps and audio interfaces / mixers.

 

I think I need an Amplifier to power headphones with potentially higher impedance according to this video and an audio interface or mixer to plug an XLR microphone into. However this leads to some questions:

 

1. Would an audio interface / mixer have a built in Amp and DAC or would I need to buy a separate Amp or DAC alongside an audio interface / mixer for my new headphones and XLR microphone?

2. Would I be able to plug an Xbox One X audio source as an audio input to the audio interface / mixer, so that I can have Xbox game sound through my PC headset alongside the sounds on my computer? For example I would like to use Discord on my PC while being able to hear Xbox game sound though the same headset.

3. What is a mixamp? Is this a mixer with a built in amp or something different? The only ones I can see are from a company called Astro.

 

All of this extra audio equipment is confusing, compared to my current set up which is really simple. 

 

Hopefully someone could explain what audio hardware I need for my purpose.

 

Thanks.

[rice guru]

audio interfaces have a built in DAC amp but often modern consumer interfaces like a scarlett or your cheap behringer one wont have one thats too powerful or overall clean . you should be able to use the xbox as a source plug it into your mixer and listen to it through your pc personally not sure how mixers should be setup I don't have one myself. 

 a mixamp is just a shitty DAC/amp that comes with Astros. you sould run a separate DAC /amp and a mizer for you mic no proble. or you can grab a relatively easy to drive headphone and plug it into a interface like a scarlett

[Travercraig]

53 minutes ago, rice guru said:

audio interfaces have a built in DAC amp but often modern consumer interfaces like a scarlett or your cheap behringer one wont have one thats too powerful or overall clean . you should be able to use the xbox as a source plug it into your mixer and listen to it through your pc personally not sure how mixers should be setup I don't have one myself. 

 a mixamp is just a shitty DAC/amp that comes with Astros. you sould run a separate DAC /amp and a mizer for you mic no proble. or you can grab a relatively easy to drive headphone and plug it into a interface like a scarlett

So if the headphones don't have a really high impedance, I should be able to use the built in DAC/Amp of an audio interface? Else if the headphones have a massive impedance I would need to buy a seperate DAC/Amp alongside the audio interface? Is that correct? Also you say I should be able to plug in an Xbox audio input into a mixer, does this also apply to an audio interface, because a mixer looks like it has a lot more input ports than an audio interface. Thank you for the reply.

[rice guru]

17 minutes ago, GR412 said:

So if the headphones don't have a really high impedance, I should be able to use the built in DAC/Amp of an audio interface? Else if the headphones have a massive impedance I would need to buy a seperate DAC/Amp alongside the audio interface? Is that correct? Also you say I should be able to plug in an Xbox audio input into a mixer, does this also apply to an audio interface, because a mixer looks like it has a lot more input ports than an audio interface. Thank you for the reply.

Yes . Pretty much summed it up . You should also be able to plug in a low impedance headphone up to a mixer fine. 

[Travercraig]

1 hour ago, rice guru said:

Yes . Pretty much summed it up . You should also be able to plug in a low impedance headphone up to a mixer fine. 

Okay good to hear. Now I just need to decide if should get a mixer or an audio interface. Thanks for the help.