[acti0n]

I've been thinking of getting some AKG K550s. They're easily driven by portable devices, so that saves me from having to buy an amp. That said, I'm wondering if the Macbook Pro's onboard sound is good enough for the K550s.

 

[BrownBear]

Well, I'm not entirely sure about the MacBook Pro, as I only had a MacBook. But I know with that laptop, there was a bit of noise going on in the headphone jack. What I did to solve this was to get an external USB DAC. I picked up a Griffin iMic about four years ago, (probably would have picked something different now) and it made a huge difference. There was no noise, and it makes for a cleaner signal to send to my headphone amp or the headphones themselves. What I'm saying is that you might want to check out a USB DAC as an option to help clean up the signal if you notice any noise. Just my experiences.

 

[alv4426]

I have no noise out of my MBP 09 and although I don't have the K550 to try for you I can say that the MBP is actually pretty capable compared to any other laptop/computer I've ever tried. If people say that a portable device is good enough than I believe the MBP is more than enough.

 

[WiR3D]

good enough is still not ideal.
 
It will hold, but a real DAC will make a difference.