Speaker connection to MacOS AirPlay fails

  • 20 February 2021
  • 3 replies
  • 452 views
A

I’ve just got a new (Ikea/Sonos) Symfonisk speaker. I’ve connected it up via wired Ethernet, as is the Mac Mini (M1/Big Sur).

I can play music from Music.app fine, but if I stop, and the system is silent for a while, I have to reset the sound output on the Mac (by setting it to ‘Mac Mini Speakers’ or ‘Headphone Socket’ and then back to the AirPlay option for the Symfonisk). The same happens if I change to using a different sound-outputting application on the Mac (secondary issue - is there any way to reduce the audio lag on FaceTime and Zoom with this speaker via AirPlay?)

The Mac seems to think that it’s still connected to the speaker when it does this. Is it the Mac or the speaker which is responsible for giving me the silent treatment?

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3 replies

Annazel S
Userlevel 5
Badge +16

Hi @artcrbk.

Thanks for reaching out and welcome to the community! We’d be glad to help.

When you stream your Mac’s audio to supported Sonos products, you may experience a delay while streaming audio from live content, games, or some video apps via AirPlay.

Commonly, this issue can come as a result of a weak Wi-Fi signal or interference from a nearby device. You may check our support article that will help you reduce wireless interference around your Sonos products. If still, you’re having issues in streaming content with Airplay, you can find more suggestions and troubleshooting steps on the Apple support page.

 

If you have any other questions or concerns, feel free to reach out.

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T
Userlevel 4
Badge +6

My previous post went into ---eration, because it was critical of the reply to you, which bab- about (-bles) Wi-Fi interference when @artcrbk  clearly stated that you *hard-wired* both your Mac and Symfonisk!  Stifled post also stated, “The same thing can happen from a Mac, even with genuine Apple Homepods!” (via AirPlay2, obviously) and that you had discovered the only work-around I know, namely sending output to “Computer” before re-selecting the AirPlay speakers.  It went on to wildly speculate that multiple Bonjour Sleep Proxies were responsible, and suggested that you switch to iOS devices to send your music via AirPlay because they seem to always work.  It also suggested that you install MacOS 11.3 when it comes out, because one of its fixes relates to using AirPlay2 stereo pairs as MacOS sound output devices.  (Yes, Apple are doing this to fix complaints about their own Homepods, but… still AirPlay code in general will be modified.)  Re-posted this summary, before you gave up and went away.  Good luck with the next Big Sur, and wish me luck too!

A

Many thanks to Annazel and tracker for your answers. Yes, I’ve hard wired the devices, so wifi is not relevant. It does look like an issue with how AirPlay and Bonjour works & it looks like I’ll just have to keep Big Sur up-to-date and see if Apple solve the problem.

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