Can you record a microphone into a Schiit Modi+?
No. A DAC is a one-way street: this one lists zero analogue inputs, 0 dB of gain and no phantom power. Its USB, optical and coax sockets are digital sources feeding it, not places to record into.
Signal Chain Compatibility Matrix
Select gear and parameters for live gain, impedance and SPL calculations.
Input Equipment Setup
PASS: Optimal Signal Chain
Requires minimum +60dB of clean pre-amp gain. Most budget entry interfaces max out at +50dB to +56dB and introduce hiss at max pot. An inline preamp booster (Cloudlifter CL-1 / FetHead) is strongly recommended.
The interface preamp provides sufficient headroom.
$538
$405
-25%Tonal & acoustic characteristics: Flat, wide-range frequency response for clean music and speech. Smooth, warm acoustic character with air-suspension shock isolation.
Technical advisory: With +69dB max gain, the Gen 4 Solo can drive demanding dynamics like the Shure SM7B natively without requiring an external inline booster.
Physical Interconnect Topology
Shure SM7B
Direct Cable Connection (No Intermediate Box)
1x Shielded Balanced XLR Cable (3-Pin XLR Male to XLR Female)
Focusrite Scarlett Solo (Gen 4)
Host: Apple MacBook Pro (M1/M2/M3/M4)
Short answer: no, and no cable or adapter changes that. The Modi+ has no microphone input, no preamp and no analogue-to-digital converter.
A DAC converts digital to analogue. That is the whole device: digital arrives over USB, Toslink or coax, analogue leaves over RCA. Its specification in this catalogue makes the point without ambiguity — analogue inputs: none; maximum gain: 0 dB; phantom power: not provided. There is no jack to record into, because recording requires the opposite conversion, and the Modi+ does not contain the circuit that performs it.
The confusion is caused by a word. The Modi+ has three connectors labelled "input", and all three are digital sources being fed to the DAC, not entry points for your voice. The sockets that carry audio you can hear — RCA and the headphone jack on a stacked amp — are outputs. Reading the back panel of a DAC as if it were a mixer leads directly to this question.
What to do instead: keep the DAC for listening and add an audio interface for recording. The two live side by side on the same computer — the interface presents itself as an input device, the Modi+ as an output device, and the operating system routes them independently. Do not try to feed the interface's line outputs into the Modi+ on the way to your headphones: there is no analogue input to feed, and even the digital path would need an S/PDIF output that entry-level interfaces do not have.
The useful giveaway for any box you are unsure about: look for the phantom power line and the gain figure. A device that publishes neither has no microphone preamp, and a device with no microphone preamp was never intended to hear anything.