The difference in CPU power required to re-sample audio mattered in 2005. soxr-vhq produces better audio quality than speex-float-10 but it is also more CPU-intensive. speex-float-10 provides better quality than say speex-float-2 - higher values produce better quality and consume more CPU, lower values have lower quality and consume less CPU. It has many quality/speed options you can use by adding a -number to it. speex-float is a good option for weaker processors. resample-method sets the type of technology used for resampling.This is the better choice you will be playing audio from different sources - and you will end up doing that from time to time. Setting this to false makes PulseAudio use the default-sample-rate even if it means re-sampling 441000 audio. This has historically been buggy and problematic when playing say 44100 music in the background and opening a video file that's 48000.

avoid-resampling will, if true, make PulseAudio switch between 4800 audio output to the sound device depending on what is being played.

Run the command pacmd list-sinks | grep sample to see what your card(s) actually support. You may not be able to use the better float32le option.

default-sample-format = float32le sends higher quality samples to ALSA which in turn sends it to the actual audio card.

You can look at less /proc/asound/card?/codec#0 to see what your audio outputs support. HDMI outputs on modern GPUs do not support anything higher than 48000. Using 96000 would also be fine if you only use a external DAC/AMP connected by USB or motherboard audio. Modern digital audio equipment can usually handle 48000 just fine.

default-sample-rate sets the default sample-rate used by PulseAudio.

The above settings provide the following benefits: Or you may want this instead if you never use more than stereo.Дo note that PulseAudio will detect if the output sink lacks the number of channels required and downmix to stereo if enable-remixing is set to yes (which is the default).

does the same as enable-lfe-remixing = no in latest PA versions use enable-lfe-remixing if you have old PulseAudio version You will also want this if you are using a 5.1 surround setup: See HOWTO choose default-sample-rate below if you think you want something other than 48 kHz. avoid soxr-vhq if you have an old slow CPU speex-float-10 is best fast method, soxr-vhq is better but slower pulseaudio -dump-resample-methods for all options lscpu | grep Byte Order will tell if your CPU likes le or be pacmd list-sinks | grep sample will show what you can/should (ab)use PulseAudio is system-wide configured by /etc/pulse/nf and this has some settings which may affect audio quality. Configuration example for (placebo) better audio

Pulseaudio archlinux