Hi. I have a pair of HomePods set up as a stereo pair attached to the Apple TV. Roon only sees the Apple TV and not the stereo pair, which is fine, but when I play any music through them it pans from left to right across the stereo field. Doesn’t do it on the downstairs Apple TV with Pulse M’s or in headphones. Any help is appreciated 🙏
Describe your network setup
Ethernet connection on all devices. Linksys Velop router and 2 mesh nodes
What happens if you add the Homepods to your Apple Home app prior to using them in Roon? Here’s more info on this:
Is there a difference in network connection between the devices?
A few additional steps to try:
Go to Settings in Roon, then select the Audio tab.
Ensure that the Apple TV is enabled as an audio device.
Double-check the configuration and make sure it’s set up to output stereo sound.
Verify HomePod Pairing
Open the Home app on your iOS device.
Confirm that your HomePods are set up as a stereo pair. Sometimes, if the pairing is disrupted, it can cause audio issues.
Try playing music directly from your iOS device to the HomePods using AirPlay, bypassing the Apple TV. This can help determine if the issue is with the Apple TV or the HomePod setup.
And lastly, ensure that both your Apple TV and HomePods have the latest firmware updates. Outdated software can sometimes cause compatibility issues.
Thanks for the response and all is in order.
No difference in network
Set for stereo
Already in home app but roon sees them as just Apple TV not stereo HomePods and the home app has them separated. See pic
@benjamin any more ideas. I’ve just bought a years sub so I am hoping there’s a solution to this issue.
Thanks in advance
Also tried HomePods just as stereo pair disconnected from Apple TV……still the same
Just tried with airplay direct from Qobuz - no problems. Apple Music - no problems. Tidal - no problems
Roon - still phasing from left to right and vice versa. Sounds as if volume is down on the left channel but the stereo phasing or panning is prominent. Also doesn’t happen when I airplay to pulse m’s as well as the powernode.
Thanks so much for the additional information and testing!
My apologies if this has been glazed over, but when you have your Apple TV enabled in Roon (with playback to the homepods) have you tested out enabling the airplay compatibility toggle? You can find it in the zone>device settings.
Let me know if this makes any difference, and our team will enable a fresh diagnostic report to review things further - feel free to leave a more specific date, time, and name of track the next time you reproduce the issue.
Hi @benjamin
I have just toggled that on and it’s was out of sync for the first 20 secs. Then the panning started to happen. Seemed to fix itself then started again.
08.53am and 08.56 (31.10.24) for time stamps and see screenshots for track info.
I thought it may have something to do with HDMI arc so I switched it off and the timing was out at the start again and then panning ensued at 09.00am - 09.01am
How are the HomePods, Apple TV, and the machine hosting RoonServer all connecting to the internet?
Please list out the specific topology, including the type of connection at each endpoint/controller (Wifi vs ethernet) and the node or router to which it is connected.
Reviewing this case, it sounds suspiciously like multicast traffic isn’t routing correctly between the HomePod pair and the RoonServer machine. Verify that multicast and IGMP snooping are enabled in any router administration pages. For due diligence, hardwire the RoonServer machine via ethernet for testing, along with any ethernet-capable endpoints.
If you have an updated timestamp of a failure event, please let us know and we’ll examine diagnostics precisely. However, our goal now is to determine why the HomePods aren’t visible as a grouped AirPlay Zone in Roon.
With regards to HomePods not showing as grouped airplay. That’s been like that since implementation. I did ask ages ago about that but never got to the bottom of it.
I think having the stereo pair not showing up when used as the audio out of an Apple TV is the expected behavior. I have 2 Apple TVs, each with a stereo pair and none of them show up.
I would hope that Roon support knows this At least I’ve been told by at least one Roon support this was expected behavior.
I had my HomePod mini pair as a roon endpoint (while being used as speakers for appletv) and it was working fine until I updated the HomePods recently. Now Roon thinks it is playing something but nothing comes out. I am almost certain that this stopped working after the recent HomePod and appleTV update.
Thanks @Menzies . I’m getting all sorts of grief with them now in the home app (both were showing as 18.1 but there’s obviously issues there). Currently trying to reset /re-pair etc. Joy.
Once I’ve got this sorted hopefully Roon will work on them again.
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.
Please connect the HomePods as a stereo pair directly to RoonServer as an Airplay Zone rather than connecting them via the Apple TV (use the Apple Home app to pair them and then connect to that Airplay device in Roon).
Can you reproduce the panning issue under that circumstance?
Here’s why we’re asking:
Every single packet received by this Airplay Zone (the Apple TV-managed Home Pod stereo pair) is being requested after being sent; however, the requests are returning in the same interleaved order as the packets were received. Whatever managed network hardware is delaying the Airplay stream between RoonServer and the HomePods is delaying every packet uniformly.
So, we’re going to remove these elements from the network path one-by-one, starting with the TV itself.
Where are RoonServer and the Apple TV connecting in this topology currently? I’m aware the switches are unmanaged, but we need to know the exact pathway of the Airplay stream from RoonServer ----> AppleTV.
Sorry for the delayed response - been a little under the weather.
Right then. Unpaired HomePods from ATV and it was perfect. HomePods show in room as stereo pair and audio is great. Time was 11.05-11.14am.
Selected HomePods as default audio output in tv to be HomePods and tried again. All good. However room then doesn’t see HomePods at all, just the ATV but all working. I then switched ARC back on and still good. I will keep trying but all seems ok at present.
As for topology. It’s all Ethernet so from ATV to switch. Roon server to same switch. Switch to router. That’s it!
Just tired again @ 11.18 and it’s doing it again. Going to try again with ARC enabled.
11.20. All seems good without ARC enabled
If you see anything odd on these time stamps let me know.
At least I’ve been told by at least one Roon support this was expected behavior.