A sound quality -- people with time for reparation (9)
I believe the answer is:
atonement
'reparation' is the definition.
(thesaurus)
'a sound quality people with time' is the wordplay.
'sound quality' becomes 'tone' (I've seen this before).
'people' becomes 'men' (man is a kind of person).
'with' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'time' becomes 't'.
'a'+'tone'+'men'+'t'='ATONEMENT'
'for' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for atonement that I've seen before include "'Penance, redemption (9)'" , "satisfaction" , "Reparation (for a wrong)" , "Compensation for a wrong" , "reparations?" .)