I am looking for a way to connect an external speaker as the left speaker to a MacBook Pro to get better stereo sound.
From what I have read in the forums it should be possible to output audio on multiple devices at once, even when connecting over Bluetooth. With the latest updates to surround sound standards (AirPlay 2?) this should be possible.
https://support.apple.com/en-au/guide/audio-midi-setup/ams1005/mac
Can someone please tell if the resulting sound will be balanced – and if the audio balance can be further tweaked in MacOS or using some third party app?
Best Answer
Here is my proof of concept that this can be done. I connected 2 sets of 2 speakers laid out next to each other and added them to an Aggregate device in MIDI tool.
Then I configured the left speaker of one set to play only L channel and right speaker from second set to play only R channel.
I was unable to assign the entire set of speakers to play one channel. There was an option to setup Quadraphonic sound with 4 speakers, but that did not work for me and I had to use only Stereo with 2 speakers (the far left and far right). It had to do with the app - movies played on all 4 speakers, but music played on the default speakers, bypassing any MIDI settings I made for the aggregate device.
The resulting sound is more spacious than purely from the MBP, but due to not being able to play Quadraphonic sound 2 of my 4 speakers in the middle are sitting idle. This would also cause an even bigger imbalance between the 100W left speaker and just right one of the MBP tiny speakers.