device: 0.206 semantic: 0.196 other: 0.148 socket: 0.055 PID: 0.049 graphic: 0.048 permissions: 0.046 vnc: 0.043 network: 0.041 files: 0.040 performance: 0.035 debug: 0.035 boot: 0.032 KVM: 0.028 debug: 0.299 device: 0.155 other: 0.108 files: 0.073 socket: 0.062 semantic: 0.057 boot: 0.048 PID: 0.041 graphic: 0.036 performance: 0.034 permissions: 0.023 KVM: 0.023 vnc: 0.022 network: 0.019 Please support "-soundhw none" qemu currently provides a default set of sound hardware. The -soundhw option can change that default set, such as by using "-soundhw pcspkr" to disable most of it, but no "-soundhw none" option exists to disable all of it. As far as I can tell, disabling the default sound hardware requires specifying -nodefaults and then manually specifying all the desired hardware, leaving out sound hardware. Please consider adding support for "-soundhw none", to disable all the default sound hardware. Actually, QEMU doesn't provide a default set of sound hardware. The pcspk device provides port 0x61 and like most other legacy ISA devices is not removed by -nodefaults (i8254 PIT, i8257 DMA, i8259 PIC; only the serial port can be removed). However, unless you configure it specifically with "-soundhw pcspk", the pcspk device does not emit any audio and is little more than an bolted-on piece of the PIT device model. You can check it yourself by placing a breakpoint on pcspk_audio_init and pcspk_realizefn. With -nodefaults, the latter does run, just like with no command line option, but pcspk_audio_init is not called. With -soundhw pcspk, both are called. It looks like qemu without any specific -soundhw CLI option uses pulseaudio. So I still think a -soundhw none would be nice to have. Pulseaudio is a sound *backend*. This is independent of the choice of guest hardware frontend. You can disable pulseaudio using an env variable QEMU_AUDIO_DRV=none