[kafka]

Originally Posted by darjama

Since you need phantom for the mics, you can get a separate phantom power supply to run them without the PA:
Audio Technica CP8506 48VDC 4-Channel Phantom Power Supply from zZounds.com!

or get a mic pre with phantom. For short $, these aren't bad:
ART Tube MP The Original from zZounds.com!
M-Audio Audio Buddy from zZounds.com!
Behringer MIC2200 Ultragain Pro from zZounds.com!

If you have a few extra $ to spend, I'd get the preamps. that way you can run 4 mics at once into your recorder. Of course then you'll be tempted to buy more mics...and stands...and cables.

Haven't worked with the above pre's, but yeah, you're going to need phantom power if you want to get the PA out of the chain. Now, the output of a mic pre is at line level and impedance and is usually balanced. So once again, you'd have to convert to the unbalanced RCA line ins, rather than using the MIC ins. The AT 48v phantom power supply above may be your best solution.

Or, get yourself a couple of Shure SM57s for $100 each and forget about the phantom powered mics for now. Everybody always ends up with a bunch of SM57's anyways, so I'd probably go for that if I were you.