Looking For Audio Interface Recommendations to use as DAC

Hello, I wanted to upgrade my set-up by adding a DAC to it but since I must connect an xlr microphone to it, I need to buy an audio interface instead and bypass its’ own amp to use it only as a DAC. I will be very thankful if anyone could recommend me some according to the specifications I need; my budget is unlimited at the moment.

It needs to have at least one XLR Mic input and 48V Phantom Power. No other inputs for extra mics/instruments are needed.

I am using balanced headphones with a DROP Cavalli Liquid Carbon X amp, I will need the audio interface to have balanced outputs on the back which lets me bypass whatever amp the interface has while preferably letting me still have direct monitoring on it.

Since my motherboard doesn’t have a SPIDIF out, it will need to have a USB connection.

Thank you so much in advance.

Just wondering, what mic and what headphones are you going to be using?

Hi M0N, thanks for your fast reply.

I will be using an Artesia AMC-10 Condenser microphone, it connects with an XLR cable and it will need 48V Phantom Power.

To my Cavalli Liquid Carbon X amp, I have Sennheiser HD58X Jubilee headphones connected with their balanced cables.

Gotcha. If you have the budget, something like an audient id4 mkii is pretty solid overall, it has a fairly nice dac inside it, and is a bit more warmer thicker leaning which tends to be nice for most budget mics (I’m not familiar with the amc-10). It can output balanced through 1/4 inch trs, so you would need some male 1/4 inch trs to male 3 pin xlr cables

Thanks a lot for your recommendation! It looks like it’s exactly what I need. I’ll look into it.

Hello M0N, sorry for the late and random reply;
I was wondering something about the Audio Interface you mentioned, it looks great and I do have the budget for it. However, I realized that it had 24 bit /44.1 - 96kHz Is there much difference between that and 24 bit 192 kHz? Should I be going for that instead and how much more would that cost me? Thank you very much in advance.

From what I know that interface only comes in 24/96, and that really shouldn’t be a problem imo. If you have a ton of 192khz files then perhaps it might be worthwhile to look at something different (but you can still play those files resampled which is going to sound almost as good anyways), but personally don’t think it’s a big deal for most people

I see, thank you so much again for all the information that you gave. I appreciate your willingness and taking your time off to help a lot.