hi there everyone

i'm just trialling a babyface for my laptop because i am trying to save as much weight as possible. so far i'm very impressed, sound quality is excellent and i can get 3ms latency with no dropouts at all. and it powers just fine off 1 usb port, so happy days are here.

but i just wanted to know a couple of things, and i figured this forum would be the best place to ask. ideally i'd want to leave the breakout cable at home, and so it seems fine to run a standard stereo out to 2xRCA from the headphone port - i assume the sound quality there is the same as that on the 'normal' XLR outs is it? since i plug into RCAs anyway having balanced does nothing. obviously this means i don't have separate headphone out but i don't need that really.

also, i have a microphone with a standard 1/4" plug, it is a dynamic microphone with 5k impedance. if i plug it in to the instrument in, and turn the gain up to about 48 or so, it sounds ok, but is this actually a good idea? or am i bypassing something that i would be getting using XLR cable into the breakout cable? i don't really "get" the impedance thing although i've looked into it a bit - the babyface has 2k impedance it says according to spec...

thanks in advance for any advice, sorry if i asked obvious questions

cheers,
S