Improving audio quality in VirtualBox

[jalexm]

I am migrating a VM from VMware to VirtualBox. I'm finding VirtualBox very good, but there's a problem: the audio settings are very simple and the sound played is not of good quality. High Definition Audio driver has been installed. It looks like some generic Microsoft driver. Is there any way to install something better? I would like to use this VM to play high quality songs and make some audio edits.

Note: My host and guest are Windows 10 and there is a Creative Titanium HD (PCIe) sound card installed on the host.

Thanks.

[mpack]

I suspect that you need to read the existing topics on this subject. E.g. viewtopic.php?f=7&t=79129. The latter is on a Linux host, but the host probably doesn't matter.

If it turns out not to be that, that generally speaking you need to minimize CPU hoggage in either guest or host. In short, if you have a quad core host then assign 2 cores to the VM. Not more, or less.

[jalexm]

I suspect that you need to read the existing topics on this subject. E.g. viewtopic.php?f=7&t=79129. The latter is on a Linux host, but the host probably doesn't matter.
If it turns out not to be that, that generally speaking you need to minimize CPU hoggage in either guest or host. In short, if you have a quad core host then assign 2 cores to the VM. Not more, or less.

Hello.
I just read the topic you recommended. As I said, I started using VirtualBox recently and did not know about these issues. I'm really enjoying VirtualBox and I did not want my message to sound like a complaint. I really admire your hard work to develop VirtualBox. So I would like to ask a few more questions:
1) Why are there no more options than 16bit/44100Hz in Playback devices -> Speakers -> Properties -> Advanced in guest using Intel HD Audio? Modern sound cards can play at bit depths and sample rates better than that.
2) Is it possible to install the drivers for a USB sound card directly on the guest? If so, I think that would help with sound quality issues.

[mpack]

I think you are operating under a misapprehension: I did not develop VirtualBox. This is a user discussion forum, i.e. I am a user like yourself, just one with a bit more experience, and who volunteers to help out newbies. Only people with expensive support contracts can expect direct help from Oracle.

The options in the audio card advanced section is limited to those which the devs felt like implementing. Presumably those would ones which they thought would be needed by paying customers. And bear in mind that the audio system in a VM is emulated, so the actual capabilities of the sound card in a modern host PC is not directly relevant, so long as it's enough to enable the emulation.

Yes, it's possible to connect USB devices to a guest. That may not improve sound quality however - the basic problem is that streaming data to a physical device in glitch free real time can sometimes be hard to ensure in a VM which is sharing time with the host PC, especially if the VM is not optimally configured (which for noobs is pretty much a given). Frankly, talking to physical hardware with any kind of time constraint - isn't a good area for VMs.