Sure but that doesn't mean the default Apple audio jack is high quality.
I have a cheap USB DAC (bought from monoprice) to power a set of Beyerdynamic headphones. The DAC beat a macbook I was using for work hands down on quality of sound.
Specifically, I noted the DAC had better definition of sound meaning that I could pick out details better. It also had better spatial attributes as well, meaning that I could pick out instruments in 3d space.
To be fair, doing a D to A conversion in a laptop is hard, and while Apple does it relatively better than average, it's still probably better off done outside of the macbook itself.
My experience has been similar. The output on my MacBook was fine, until I hooked up an amp (coincidentally, my headphones are also Beyerdynamic; DT880s in this case). It sounded pretty bad to be honest, so then I hooked up the external DAC, and it was fascinating how big a difference it made. And I'm not an audiophile, so I usually don't really notice such differences.
So my post is downvoted to -3 and then bumped back up to 0. But there was no disagreement in the form of a response.
I'm not an audiophile either, but there is something about having listened to a track over and over again on an average pair of headphones and then listening to it again through a DAC and the DT770s I have. It's like hearing it for the first time again. Details just pop out and I really began to appreciate the engineering that went into some of the 80's songs I listened to on crappy car speakers when I was a kid.
BTW, the tracks I used to test the spatial qualities of my macbook was "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues" on the O' Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack, and "Blackbird" by the Kings Singers.
With the DT770's alone using the Mac jack, the Mac smeared the audio on both tracks. The first one especially because the mic used for recording introduces a distortion.
With the DAC, spatial on both were clear and came from point sources. Phenomenal.
Sure but that doesn't mean the default Apple audio jack is high quality.
I have a cheap USB DAC (bought from monoprice) to power a set of Beyerdynamic headphones. The DAC beat a macbook I was using for work hands down on quality of sound.
Specifically, I noted the DAC had better definition of sound meaning that I could pick out details better. It also had better spatial attributes as well, meaning that I could pick out instruments in 3d space.
To be fair, doing a D to A conversion in a laptop is hard, and while Apple does it relatively better than average, it's still probably better off done outside of the macbook itself.