Volume greyed out on iMac when AirPods Pro are connected

I've been having this sort of odd problem pop up lately. Whenever I connect my AirPods Pro to my iMac Pro (2017) - the volume becomes greyed out. I have completely removed the airpods upward of 5 times at this point to no avail. Compounding the issue is they seem to not want to stay connected as the audio device either. Occasionally they just become disconnected even though they're in my ears and operational. So between the two issues, it's a pain to try and use them for any reason with my iMac. This does not seem to be an issue with my MacBook pro or with my iPhone 12.

(I've dug around within audio midi settings as well and I just cannot seem to track down the issue.)

If anyone else has had this issue and could advise I would be very grateful.