Hi there,
As you can tell from the title i'm going to buy the external sound card roland ua22,
Does anyone have experience with this one or with similar audio interface?
The DAC is better than the one in built-in mac soundcard?
Thanks

 

Almost anything is much better than an internal soundcard

 

From my experience, the Mac's line out is of rather good quality.
You might have to invest a bit more than "just" a UA22 if you're after a noticeable improvement in audio quality from the line out.

If you also plan to record, it's a different story:
With the UA22, you not only get proper connectors but phantom power, proper preamps and direct monitoring too, which is a big plus (if not to say a necessity) for recording.
And it has MIDI too.

If you're open to alternatives, the Focusrite Saffire 6 USB might be another option, although I've never compared these two myself.

 

I wouldn't use this one for recording, i need this for headphones,volume knob and a better DAC for my monitors.
What would you suggest ?
thx

 

Hey
Fiction is dead on ! Ive owned both and the Focusrite is better by miles, if you want better pre-amps meaning where you plug your mic, Guitar etc... into Clarity ,Quality Sound Buy The Focusrite AU you won't regret it
I wouldn't use this one for recording, i need this for headphones,volume knob and a better DAC for my monitors.
What would you suggest ?
thx Focusrite flips the bill for all of that your requesting period ! ...........

 

If you don't need inputs, then HifiMe 9018D is perfect choice.
DAC - Sabre ES9018K2M - probably one of the best on the planet, mobile version of ES9018 with 127dB dynamic range.
Asynchorous USB transfer - saves CPU cycles
Native ASIO drivers
DSD support
32bit volume control

All that for $119

 

Oh Yeah My Scarlett 18i20 arriving any day now. :dancing:

 

127dB of dynamic range? Read that on the box, didn't ya?

 

No... Just... No... They are not. They're the same shitty Realteks with horrible opamp circuitry. One could use an external DAC though...