The so called "kernel profiles" were first created by Orion under the RaspyFi project, to allow users tweak some low-level system parameters and find the best "sound signature" to their own personal taste. Those optimizations are still in development under RuneAudio project, and are reviewed every time the distro is upgraded and a different kernel version is used.
From the
About page:
RuneOS also includes some kernel profiles, switchable sets of performance tweaks acting on some system kernel parameters. This does not have anything to do with DSPs or other sound effects: the output is kept untouched (bit perfect).
It happens that these parameters introduce an audible impact on the overall sound quality, acting on kernel latency parameters (and probably on the amount of overall jitter). Sound results may vary depending on each setup, so users can choose according to their personal taste.
