HomePod Mini Sound Distortion and Crackling Over AirPlay from Mac

Is anyone else experiencing distortion or crackling from their HomePod mini when using it as an AirPlay output from your Mac?

I have two HomePod mini's which I have setup in stereo pair. They work perfectly fine when playing from my iPhone, or, when playing from a native Apple app on my Mac, like Apple Music, Apple TV, QuickTime, etc.

However... if I select the HomePod stereo pair from the top bar as my Mac's audio output... the audio gets distorted and crackly.

If I select from here:

...it distorts and is crackling.

However, if I select from here in a native app:

...it works perfectly fine.

Anyone know why this is happening? I was really hoping that the MacOS 11.3 update would fix this... but it didn't. By the way, if I am in a native apple app, like Apple Music, and select the audio output as "Computer" and then select my HomePod pair from the top bar AirPlay dropdown, the distortion occurs.

So it appears not to be isolated to only non-apple apps. It happens any time the HomePod is selected from the top bar. Safari, Chrome, Apple Music, everywhere.