Budget is a significant factor, but my situation is a bit different. I use my current setup for audio conferencing and phone calls daily, so I need a mic input, currently using a Modmic, so nothing fancy there.
Current gear list:
Schiit Hel
Modmic Uni
Sennheiser HD598cs/HiFiMan Sundara
I also have a FiiO BTR5 that I can use as a USB DAC as well, but I mainly use that when I’m out and about - also the mic on the BTR5 doesn’t work in USB DAC mode.
My problem is: I have to RMA the Hel for the second time since purchasing it in April 2020. I asked and they’re willing to refund the purchase - money is a bit tight right now but I can throw another 50-100 USD at this, on top of the refund from the Hel if need-be. given that I use it daily for phone calls, I need something reliable. Two RMAs within a year of purchase doesn’t meet my definition of reliable.
I’ve been eyeballing moving to a Magni/Modi stack with an audio interface for the Modmic, but I’m still unsure, I’ve been burned by Schiit already, and I don’t want to walk into another nightmare of RMAs…
Primarily for: conferencing, phone calls, light listening (between calls/conferences), as well as occasional studio-quality listening (FLAC 24/96 mostly) MUST be reliable, budget should be around $300 USD for all (DAC/AMP/Input interface).
Suggestions are very welcome! Also if you have the Hel and haven’t had any issues with it, let me know about that too: I’m curious if I’ve just gotten some bad apples here, or if the Hel line is fundamentally flawed.
Yamaha AG03 comes to mind. Main feature it brings is the headset mic input and XLR-mic input. You could also run onboard sound to it and assign that communication device. That way you have a hardware knob to adjust conference volume.
The headphone amp in it will get you by, might still want to look at dedicated headphone amps (Schiit Magni Heresy, JDS Labs Atom, etc. )
Hello,
Admittedly the Yamaha Ag03 doesn’t look bad and the price is correct.
Let’s talk a little bit technically about your request.
Theoretically you can be a Dac/amp or Dac in combination with a headphone amplifier as your budget allows.
You can plug in your Modmic on your pc separately and set it up under Windows, and output sound from the Dac and microphone separately.
The only thing you have to take care of is that you don’t hear the speaker twice.
So it would be bad if you had open or half-open headphones.
If your wallet is already small then the Ify hip dac or the Ify zen Dac would not be wrong.
But only if you connect your microphone separately.
Otherwise I remember the Sennheiser which is more for gaming and Soundblaster.
But I cannot say how good this is.
Lately I’ve been looking at the ARC Mk2 by Mayflower as a direct drop in replacement. the AG03 looks interesting though; I used to use (way back in the day) a Behringer Eurorack UB1204 Pro, to analog mix all the onboard audio from several PCs into a single line for my headphones. I had a Behringer XLR mic for it but all the electronics in both have gone weird after so many years (~10-15 years) which seems about right for a budget brand like Behringer. I like that the AG03 has a combo 1/4" and XLR connection, I can pop an adapter in it for my modmic uni to 3.5mm, and use that until some time in the future when I have the money to buy a proper XLR-based mic for my needs.
Definitely something to consider. I have onboard audio on my PC, but when using a DAC, I like to turn it off in the BIOS to keep my sound control panel looking clean, I actually have to restart to re-enable it right now with my Schiit Hel being down… I’ve been using my BTR5 as output-only as a USB DAC in the interim, but I haven’t been able to take or make any calls this week which has impacted my capabilities at work (working from home). So a restart is going to happen today or tomorrow. I just don’t like restarting my PC often, so I’ve been putting it off.
All good options, more to think about, and that’s why I like this community, I’m not dead set on either the Mayflower (I’m not even sure I can find one right now), or the AG03, or anything right now. so if anyone else has a suggestion, please let me know.
As I said, you can use anything you want on Dac.
Let’s say you buy the Ify Zen dac, which you finish via usb.
You plug your mod mic into the pink socket on your pc and open the loudspeaker symbol in the control panel or in the lower right corner.
There you choose the sound
output.
All applications have to be selected with the Ify Zen Dac like Skype or Micrsoft teams in the sound output.
The microphone has to be similar to the one in Google with How can i use a Mic on Win 10 in the search bar.
It’s really not that difficult and then you just have to test it.
If necessary like in Skype zbs you only have to select the microphone in the settings and the sound output.
What I’m saying is that I physically disable the integrated audio on my PC in the BIOS. so the pink mic input port on the back connects to nothing, the devices do not exist in the associated panels you’ve referenced. I can turn that back on, but I’m frequently in the sound mixer/output panels on my PC because I need to change things up (especially when using something for noise mitigation, like RTX voice); and I like to keep the number of devices in those panels to a minimum. nothing quite as frustrating as scrolling through 5 or 6 irrelevant devices I never use, just to find my USB DAC at the bottom of the list, so I can adjust it’s settings. Ideally, I want a DAC/AMP with an audio input so I can just have the device’s inputs and outputs on there, not a dead output from my PC’s mainboard on there taking up space in the list (and all the other I/O it has on there).
It may seem nit-picky, but it’s how I operate. I try to minimize things that annoy me.
I’m interested in the AG03, and looking at it, the AG06 isn’t a significant cost increase, and I may go with that. I should have some cash left over from that to pick up a headphone amp if the AG isn’t putting out enough power. That will dramatically streamline my audio I/O on the PC, which is exactly what I want; the AG06 would give me input options that will keep me happy for a long time too… but both of these are far more complex than something like the Mayflower ARC.