Sorry Joden imo your comments are also not exactly correct either.

Many have posted here that the headphone outputs on a modern laptop are very good. This is because the vast majority of laptop users are now using them to watch high definition movies with surround sound and high quality music vids. Those require good audio outputs. Older laptops or maybe real elcheapo netbooks don't have that and that may be what you're thinking of. About 4 years ago I was using a new Acer for some live gigs and the sound quality was excellent going into a JBL based PA with a five buck RatShack stereo splitter.

You're assuming people are only using basic GM softsynths. Also not true at all. What about Garritan, Sampletank and all the other top shelf VSTi's? There's folks right here who are using Kontakt or Halion and those arn't cheap. The sound quality of those synths is very good and Biab or any other DAW will process those and output the result through the headphone jack just fine. ASIO will interface with internal laptop soundcards just fine as well and will reduce the latency for live playing.

This raises another point. If you're not playing a softsynth live in real time then latency is not an issue and this is a very important point that causes mass confusion around here. Unless you're playing a softsynth live latency does NOT MATTER. This means that any comments about ASIO working or not working with this or that laptop or software can be completely irrelevant.

The next point is unless you're using a hardware synth that does not have a USB connection then you don't even need an interface for that either when using a laptop. Just plug in a Ketron or Sonic Cell using USB and you're good to go.

Now, the final point is live recording. If you're recording say your live keyboard playing or live vocals using a mic then yes, you need something to plug your keyboard audio outs and/or mics into and that would require an interface but even then lots of modern keyboards have USB as well so still no interface is required in lots of cases.

Bob

Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.