Dedicated Soundcard?

Most laptops have pretty mediocre output DAC chips, they work fine but if you connect them to any studio reference monitors you might as well get a good audio interface at the same time. Anyway, I’ve used MBP laptop outputs from time for ad hoc sudden DJ events. No headphone monitoring but you get decent output. As for studio work, never.

Only use them really for the studio. My main one is getting quite old but was pretty expensive back when I bought it. It’s a WaMi Rack 192L by ESI and acts as a separate rack which is useful for inputting XLR Mic’s and has phantom power. I have a couple of portable ones too for carying about. The Tascam 192L (USB) and the Mackie ONYX (Firewire). At home for listening to music though, I put everything into a central Mackie mixer and control the main volume from that and it seems to be ok sound wise. Interference occurs though on occasions from the laptop, more so if the power is plugged in. I had to get a second PSU for it because the old one which freyed at the edges caused the noise to increase massively, so always check for that. If you ground loop the power, it can get rid of the power interference.