Mac Audio vs. External Audio

[Marc Cerisier]

I'm in the process of upgrading the audio of my organ—basically, from using headphones to now having two Behringer B2031a speakers and a Presonus Temblor T10 sub en route. So far, I've used the analog line out of my Mac Pro 2008, and wonder is it worth it to get an external interface as I'm only using 2 channels.

Thoughts?

Thanks,
Marc

[mdyde]

Hello Marc,

OS X's built-in audio drivers are very good, so you're unlikely to notice a difference in performance (latency, polyphony, resilience to audio glitches).

I would say that the audio quality of Macs' built-in outputs is fairly good anyway, but a high-quality professional-grade audio interface (RME, MOTU, etc.) will probably give a noticeable increase in sound quality.

[Marc Cerisier]

Thanks—thats exactly the information I was looking for!

Marc

[ldeutsch]

I agree with Martin's reply. I have two large HW consoles and both are using Mac builtin output jacks to drive a pair of powered monitors with a subwoofer. The results are excellent. I have compared this with a few of the nicer Mac audio interfaces and I am entirely satisfied with the built in outputs.

In my small home recording studio (which does not have a dedicated HW console), I use a big MOTU audio interface with 12 ins and outs (which I need for recording anyway) and the sound is about the same.

The only reason I see to using a dedicated MAC audio interface is to get more than a single stereo output.

Les