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Author: Besek

Link: /question/31895813/answer/54474065

Source: Zhihu

Let’s start with Why a sound card is needed:

In the past, when the audio driver performance of the Windows system was very poor, the establishment of a PC-based audio workstation required a reliable sound card, because Steinberg Company in order to bypass Windows MME audio driver has developed a low-latency, high-quality audio driver ASIO for professional audio workers, which reduces the audio driver delay of Windows from the "second" level to the "millisecond" level.

At the same time, the quality of the onboard sound cards at that time (especially the infamous AC97 series commonly used in PCs) really did not meet the requirements of music production, so any musician who has some requirements for sound quality All will be equipped with a professional sound card.

But today, Microsoft has added WASAPI, a new audio driver form, to Windows, allowing host software to access audio hardware more directly. At the same time, current PC onboard sound cards have reached the so-called "HD" level. , so there is no problem in meeting some basic audio processing needs (of course we do not rule out some historical reasons, some host software is not compatible with WASAPI, but in this case, you can install the ASIO4ALL driver, so that the sound card that does not support ASIO can communicate with the ASIO through the virtual ASIO interface. host communicates).

Okay, I’m going to talk about a lot of Windows stuff before, so don’t blame me for digressing too much. Let's return our attention to Mac.

The system powered by Mac is Mac OS X, which has a completely different architecture from Windows. The audio driver of Mac OS You can go for Core Audio. So based on this, if there are no particularly high requirements, there is no need to buy an external sound card that supports ASIO and other protocols.

In addition, Apple is actually a hardware company. Even though Mac machines are so expensive, every component in them is made of very conscientious materials. If I remember correctly, the new phones now use onboard sound card modules customized by Cirrus Logic, so there is no problem at all for civilian/semi-professional sound playback. Therefore, there is no need for people with low requirements to buy an external sound card.