Auto Detect Loopback procedure. Optional?

[RJWlaw@aol.com]

It is stressed in the manuals that to have overdubbed tracks align with the track(s) already recorded, one must perform the Auto Detect Loopback procedure on the interface's input. (You connect a patch cord from the input of the interface to the output of the interface and it gives you the offset latency to assign to that input.

My question is, if you use a zero latency interface such as a presonus fire mobile or presonus audiobox usb, is there any longer a reason to assign an offset? A zero latency interface splits your input signal, sending one path to the DAW to record and one path direct to your headphones/monitors.

I ask this b/c for a decade I have ignored this procedure and my tracks have always seemingly lined up. Thinking that I could improve the already seemingly perfect alignment I ran the procedure, and assigning the resulting setoff to the input throws the resulting track well out of alignment.

I am guessing this was for when one monitored using the output of the DAW?