AirPlay to AppleTV/Stereo HomePods

[Bod1985]

Firstly, thank you so much. This works infinitely better than my manual setup of cpiped and owntone.

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I know upstream that owntone doesn't handle stereo HomePods or those connected in stereo to an AppleTV but there's been a couple of suggestions in various GitHub issues that there may be forks or build arguments that can make it work.

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Current environment for me is this:

1) HomePods in Stereo Pair set as default output for AppleTV

2) AppleTV be set as a destination and PIN prompt appears and is accepted

3) No audio from AppleTV Stereo HomePods

If I change the AppleTV output to the TV Speaker, playback works.

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Alternatively, I can use both speakers:

1) Select both speakers (which are listed separately) as destinations

2) Playback works but volume of each HomePod controlled separately

I suspect this is not in true 'stereo' - just synchronised multi-room audio on two speakers in the same room.

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Is true stereo and/or AppleTV Stereo Pair something you're likely to explore for this project as it would transform the listening experience for a turntable.

Thanks again!

-b

[Bod1985]

For now, I've got a strange workaround.

• Pi connected to TV via HDMI
• ARC enabled on AppleTV
• Owntone custom config to add HDMI output as a destination for Autostream
• Automated via HomeAssistant - LG TV source to change to Pi once Owntone starts playing
• Automated via HomeAssistant - volume changes in Autostream to reflect on the Apple TV

Now I've got Stereo and have also been able to add gain as max volume was nowhere near the level the HomePods were capable of prior to this setup.

For the fun I also made the Pi loop an MP4 of a record playing so I'm not staring at the headless raspian console