equalizer not working with airplay

It seems that somewhere around 12.8.x.x iTunes equalizer support fell off and now only seems to work with music played locally. It greys out otherwise, although it seems to occasionally appear to be working as the buttons light up blue, but never changes the sound.

I have long lauded the itunes equalizer as a reason in favor of Apple music over spotify. I've found alternative system level equalizer plugins mostly horrible. So having the equalizer not work suddenly over airplay is a massive annoyance. I've seen other threads but no evidence of any attention being paid to this . Anyone know of a solution in work, a workaround? Anything?