Bouncing audio with no interface

[Chris T]

But of a rookie question:

I currently work in DP11, but this applies to any DAW. I use an Apollo Quad interface attached to my new M2 Mac Studio.

I'd like to have my assistant do audio editing and bouncing of new mixes / edits on a separate MacBook Pro (also running DP), though I don't have any audio interface at all for this computer.

The rendering is 100% "in the box", working with audio tracks only, and using just the plugins hosted within DP. With these parameters is there any difference in audio quality OF THE ACTUAL AUDIO FILES if just the Mac default "built In" speakers is the the Audio In/Out selection? He'd be using high quality headphones to monitor, so I'm hoping aural resolution would be good enough.

Could I get away with just MAC "built in" for the purposes of bouncing audio, monitoring with good headphones? And would the audio file quality be the same as if I used a dedicated high quality audio interface?

Thanks,
C

[James Steele]

Seems like so long as the audio format you are bouncing to is the same, it would make no difference. Math is math, right? The only difference would be in perhaps the quality of the digital-to-analog conversion, but since there are no critical listening/mix decisions being made, seems like it shouldn't be any problem at all.

[mikehalloran]

But of a rookie question:

…

Could I get away with just MAC "built in" for the purposes of bouncing audio, monitoring with good headphones? And would the audio file quality be the same as if I used a dedicated high quality audio interface?

Thanks,
C

As long as no one makes any of the rookie mistakes, the usual one being not enough headroom in the individual tracks, you'll be fine.