I am currently using an Asus Xonar sound card, and everything is fine with it. I tried to plug a mic into it earlier, and there is no input. I double checked this against a USB sound card input, and the same happens. So faulty mic, right? Well, no. The mic is a Sennheiser E835, and I've been using it with my ham radio equipment for years, and it still works just fine connected to that. I am connecting via a XLR to 3.5mm jack lead. I have tried both mono and stereo variants to ensure it wasn't anything to do with that. The mic's impedence is 300Ohms nominal, so surely that cant be a problem. There is no input from the mic.. just a buzzing noise. BTW... it is a dynamic mic, not electret/condenser, so it's not a phantom power issue. There is nothing.. not even really quiet... just a buzz when I turn up the input level and/or volume, yet the mic performs perfectly when connected to my radio equipment. Surely I don't need a mic preamp just to plug a 300 Ohm dynamic mic into a PC do I? After all... been doing just that for years with all manner of cheap microphones... why should this one be any different?
Oh.. levels in the sound settings is at maximum... forgot to say, so it's not that either, and the correct input device is selected.
I'm inclined to think wiring issue/jack issue. The mic itself is 300 ohm, but there are some notes about needing 1000 ohm terminating impedance on the specs page. As a quick test to rule out one/other: try running a cable from input to output of the soundcard (With monitoring of the input disabled, just in case) - Because you should still see VU updates in windows when it picks up the input of whatever you choose to play while doing that test. From there; I'd look at the cabling. 300 Ohm sounds high from a headphone perspective, but since I've got a Modmic stuck to the side of mine that reports 2.2KOhm max resistance and happily runs on boring old 3.5mm; there's absolutely no reason I can see why you shouldn't be picking up input.
Yep, you do. It’s different because, well… its different to all manner of cheap microphones you’ve used. The mic amongst many others like it is fairly gain-hungry to start with, and in trying to adapt the XLR to a single-ended input you’re cutting the signal in half again (if that would even work? Not sure about mics specifically, can’t see why not and that’s what generally happens when you convert XLR)
