Oh I see...so because the sound was slowing down and I had the settings set to sync it was slowing the emu down thus making it require less CPU load and appearing limited.
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Well if that's the case then I don't get any framerate hit on any setting whatsoever.
I don't think bigger buffers really need more CPU time. Just a little more memory.
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Bigger buffers are better for sound quality as they make the sound stream more resistant against the problem that new audio data might come in too late (when all the buffered audio data has already been played back).
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Unfortunately, the drawback of bigger buffers is audio lag. (The difference in time between you pressing a key + the emulator producing a noise and the actual time that noise reaches your speakers).
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I have seen sound cards which produce pops & clicks when a buffer runs dry, and others where there is just silence (which sounds much less disturbing).
Spacy, Software buffers require the CPU for processing, the longer the buffer, the more processing is done.
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Hardware buffers are typically used on cards which have a SPU/MPU, which process the audio in the stead of the cpu.