In the past, getting audio reliably from virtualised macOS running on Apple silicon Macs has been something of a puzzle. Audio input seems to need some way to route it from the host to the guest, and I confess I’ve not had the patience yet to pursue that and any privacy settings required to permit it. But audio output has also been a bit hit-or-miss.

In code, this should all be straightforward by creating a VirtIO sound device configuration, with input and output streams, and assigning that to the audio devices of the VM. That should work from macOS 12 onwards. Although my virtualisers have been doing that ever since, the results haven’t been as consistent as I’d expect.

Most recently users have expressed interest in the audio processing and output capabilities of macOS VMs, so I have been assessing those, and discovered problems in synchronising audio with video.

Running all VMs on a Mac mini M4 Pro host with macOS 26.4.1, all versions of virtual macOS up to and including Tahoe 26.4.1 suffer syncing problems. Those affect all tested output in Ventura 13.7.6, but are slightly more limited in more recent guest macOS, but they still suffer marked delay in audio relative to video output. This isn’t a matter of milliseconds, but appears to be of the order of two seconds in GarageBand, at least.

So far my tests have included:

• QuickLook previews of video,
• QuickTime Player, playing video,
• TV, playing video,
• GarageBand, both in its instructional videos and synchronisation of audio output when playing tracks.

The only exception, where syncing is correct, occurs in limited circumstance in Sonoma 14.8.5 and later. To demonstrate this, select a video clip with synced audio and press the Space bar to play it in a preview. Then click on the button at the top right of that preview window to Open with QuickTime Player, and play the video there instead. That should result in correct lip-syncing, although opening the video clip directly in QuickTime Player doesn’t.

Apart from that, macOS VMs appear perfectly capable of normal audio output, at least when running on a Tahoe host.

If you have any experience of using video and/or audio in a macOS VM running on an Apple silicon Mac, I’d be interested to know whether you have encountered the same or other problems, please, in the hope that I can file a Feedback.