Apple HomePod stereo pairing

[UKenGB]

I see this has been sortof asked before, but with indeterminate outcome.

I have a pair of HomePod Minis I wish to use as a stereo pair, so I've set them up in the Home app as a stereo pair and every device around the house that can stream to an AirPlay receiver shows this combined device as a single AirPlay receiver/player in the list of available players - except Music Assistant.

I believe one can create one's own stereo pair in MA, but that should be unnecessary when they are already combined as a single AirPlay player and may even interfere with however Apple have the pair set up.

Seems to me that MA should simply see the single combined player and neither of the individual ones, the same as other AirPlay streamers/transmitters. Surely this method must be available and being used by other transmitting devices to immediately see the combined player.

Is this consistency of AirPlay operation something we might hope to see in MA or am I missing something that would enable it now?

[UKenGB]

I've created a 'Sync Group' of the 2 MiniPods, each set to a single channel and that group can be seen in Home Assistant and played (as well as the individual ones which seems wrong to me).

However in MA there is a 'Stereo Pair' filter in the player list window as well as the 'Sync Group'. The latter does work, but it appears to be simply to group many players together, rather than specifically as a stereo pair which is exactly described by the former. So that appears to be the best option to link a pair of HomePods, but…

How is that done? I can find no option to create any such 'Stereo Pair', but it does sound like exactly what is needed.

Anyone any clues on how to create such a 'Stereo Pair'?

[OzGav]

When you set up a stereo pair in the Apple Home app, the two HomePods still show up as separate devices on the network. Other AirPlay senders (your iPhone, Mac etc) know how to spot that they're a pair and show them as one, but MA doesn't do that yet — it just sees two individual speakers.

The "Stereo Pair" filter you see in the player list only gets populated by Google Cast right now, which is the only provider that detects hardware stereo pairs. There's no way to create one from within MA either.

Your workaround is actually the right approach — set up a Sync Group with one HomePod on left channel and the other on right. AirPlay has tight enough sync between players for this to work properly.

Longer term, the AirPlay provider could be updated to detect pairs automatically and present them as a single player, the same way your iPhone does. But for now the Sync Group route is the way to go.

[UKenGB]

Ok, that explains it all, thanks.

Be good to have it recognising AirPlay Stereo Pairs eventually.

Leads on to another question though. How best to 'balance' the volume levels of the 2 HomePods in a Group?

When just trying to obtain the same level it didn't seem appropriate to modify the individual 'Gain' setting of the individual HomePods in MA, but there was no other obvious way to control the individual volumes. In MA I had made the individual HomePods NOT exposed to AirPlay so only the single volume control for the Group (that was exposed to AirPlay). In the end I exposed the individual ones and could control their volumes separately, but that seemed not ideal and raised another question:-

Does MA (in its Home Assistant media players) control the volume of the actual HomePod, or just the level of the stream being sent to it. IOW, is changing the volume on the top of a HomePad the exact same thing as changing the volume in its MA/HA media_player, or are they actually 2 independent controls, in series as it were?

[OzGav]

It adjusts the actual volume. You should find the volume changes with the buttons reflected in MA

Yes I believe you will have to expand the group and adjust each player individually,

[UKenGB]

👍