For the record, this was the first means I found of attempting that which actually seemed to work. A plain QThread, with something `connect`ed to its `started` signal didn't seem to work (perhaps `connect` is smart at thread confinement?), `moveToThread` didn't work on the audio output after the fact, etc.
Specifically: there's no way to guarantee no overbuffering due to the startup race, other than having QAudioOutput obtain data by pull rather than push. But if it's pulling then that implies an extra buffer. And since the sizes it may pull are not explicit, there's guesswork involved there.
So: no extra buffer => uncontrollable risk of over-buffering. Extra buffer => a controllable risk of over-buffering.