TLDR; I am wondering what would be minimal set of equipment that would be able to support a pair of hi-fi speakers, condenser microphone and an electric guitar. I would like to understand what's the role of each piece of that set. Please feel free to point me to some external sources.
I need to purchase a microphone for videoconferencing. It seems that there are two types: USB and XLR. Since I learned that speakers, amplifiers, microphones and audio systems in general can last for decades I am definitely going to buy the latter. But then, as far as I understand I would need to get an audio interface. I was looking for a $100 - $150 microphone, but it turns out that I need to pay another $100 for an interface. I've seen people say that an interface can do more than just powering a mic, thus it makes sense to pay extra. I am not a musician so I am not convinced I would find it useful.
I am also looking for hifi speakers + amplifier too though (around $1000 budget), so I thought that maybe I could buy an amp for the speakers that would somehow also serve as a interface for the mic. After some research it seems that this is not possible, but I do not understand why. After all, if you want to take some signal and output stronger signal in both cases, why can't you use same hardware for that?
Lastly, I've always wanted to play an instrument and I think that in few years I might purchase an electric guitar. Some articles say that I can use audio interface + PC with some software + speakers as an guitar amplifier.
So guitar amplifier, speaker amplifier and audio interface seems to perform similar roles. But it also seems that there is no one piece of equipment that can do all those things. While I have some intuition why that might be the case, I do not understand that too well. All the articles I found on the internet seem to go over these topics in a very superficial manner. I am not even trying to cheap out on hardware, I just genuinely want to understand what that hardware does.
I am a computer science student, but analog signals are black magic to me.
I need to purchase a microphone for videoconferencing. It seems that there are two types: USB and XLR. Since I learned that speakers, amplifiers, microphones and audio systems in general can last for decades I am definitely going to buy the latter. But then, as far as I understand I would need to get an audio interface. I was looking for a $100 - $150 microphone, but it turns out that I need to pay another $100 for an interface. I've seen people say that an interface can do more than just powering a mic, thus it makes sense to pay extra. I am not a musician so I am not convinced I would find it useful.
I am also looking for hifi speakers + amplifier too though (around $1000 budget), so I thought that maybe I could buy an amp for the speakers that would somehow also serve as a interface for the mic. After some research it seems that this is not possible, but I do not understand why. After all, if you want to take some signal and output stronger signal in both cases, why can't you use same hardware for that?
Lastly, I've always wanted to play an instrument and I think that in few years I might purchase an electric guitar. Some articles say that I can use audio interface + PC with some software + speakers as an guitar amplifier.
So guitar amplifier, speaker amplifier and audio interface seems to perform similar roles. But it also seems that there is no one piece of equipment that can do all those things. While I have some intuition why that might be the case, I do not understand that too well. All the articles I found on the internet seem to go over these topics in a very superficial manner. I am not even trying to cheap out on hardware, I just genuinely want to understand what that hardware does.
I am a computer science student, but analog signals are black magic to me.
