Airplay audio lag/delay issues

Question

Level 1

11 points

Airplay audio lag/delay issues

I have seen this asked in other questions without and solution but that was a few years ago.

Basically, if I output the whole system audio to an airplay device, there is a 1-2 second delay. This makes watching videos etc on youtube utterly awful.

If I play music via the music app and just use the system sound settings (when using airplay) there is a 1-2s delay again.

What is ridiculous is that if I leave the system audio set to internal speakers and then just change the output in the music app to use the airplay speaker, everything is fine. 0 delay.

Has anyone fixed this? Its making the use of airplay for my macbook almost completely pointless as anything but the music app will stuffer from awful lag.

MacBook Pro

Posted on Oct 15, 2020 5:45 AM

Reply

Answer 1

raina_b22

Community Specialist

Oct 20, 2020 12:47 PM in response to samparmenter

samparmenter,

Thanks for those additional details.

Next, start the Mac in safe mode, and test for the issue there. Here's how: How to use safe mode on your Mac

Also, create a new user account, and check if the issue persists there: Set up users, guests, and groups on Mac

Thanks!

Reply

Answer 2

judysings

Community Specialist

Oct 19, 2020 6:12 PM in response to samparmenter

Hi there samparmenter,

We understand you're experiencing an issue with audio delay when using AirPlay, and we'd like to share some steps that may help.

If you use AirPlay from within the YouTube player instead of System Preferences, do you experience the same issue?

Does this happen with different AirPlay speakers?

Also, restart your Mac, and test for the issue again: Log out, sleep, restart, or shut down your Mac

Cheers!

Reply

Answer 3

i_rina

Community Specialist

Oct 20, 2020 1:47 PM in response to samparmenter

samparmenter,

Thanks for giving those steps a try and keeping us updated.

If the issue doesn't happen in the new account, this isolates it to the original user account. Try checking the Login Items which may be causing the issue: Change Users & Groups Login Items preferences on Mac

If the issue occurs in the new user account also, try reinstalling the macOS using these steps: How to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery

Regards.

Reply

Answer 4

samparmenter Author

Level 1

11 points

Oct 20, 2020 12:49 PM in response to raina_b22

I have tried safe mode but that disables all audio drivers so there is no ability to play sound from the mac. I will try and set up a new user account and see if that helps.

I have seen a few other people with the same issues but no one got a fix from what I can tell.

Reply

Answer 5

samparmenter Author

Level 1

11 points

Oct 20, 2020 6:12 AM in response to judysings

I have restarted the mac and reset the PRAM to no avail.

I can't get youtube to play via airplay separately from the system preferences setting as far as I can tell. In safari it just hangs on looking for devices.

The issue happens with both a set of Kef LSX and a Homepod. Both of them work find with every other device via airplay (iPhones, iPads) and both of them work fine when I airplay just the audio via the music app in mac os.

Reply

Airplay audio lag/delay issues

Similar questions