Yes, you can connect two completely different sets of speakers to one Mac at the same time. macOS does not check brand, only connection type: a built-in speaker, a USB DAC and a Bluetooth speaker all show up in Sound settings as just another device it can add to the group.
The mechanics of building that group, the Multi-Output Device in Audio MIDI Setup, are covered in full in our guide to playing audio through two speakers at once. This one skips the setup steps and answers the questions that only come up once the two sets you own are actually mismatched: does the brand matter, can wired and wireless really sit in the same group, and what happens when one set is naturally much louder than the other.
Does it matter if the two sets of speakers are different brands?
No, and this trips people up because it feels like it should. macOS has no concept of speaker brand anywhere in its audio system. What it sees is a connection: a name reported by the built-in output, by a USB DAC's driver, by a Bluetooth pairing, or by an AirPlay device announcing itself on the network. Two of those connections, from two completely unrelated manufacturers, are just two entries in the same list to macOS. Nothing about building a Multi-Output Device or a Chorus group checks who made either speaker.
What actually matters is the connection type each set uses, because that decides how reliably the two stay in step. A pair of speakers plugged into the headphone jack and a USB DAC are both wired, and wired devices hold a steady, predictable clock. A Bluetooth speaker or an AirPlay speaker is wireless, and wireless connections buffer audio differently and run on a coarser clock. The brand printed on the box has no bearing on any of that.
Can you mix a wired set with a Bluetooth or AirPlay set?
Yes, and this is exactly what a Multi-Output Device is designed to do: take several real outputs, of any connection type, and play the same audio to all of them at once. A headphone-jack speaker and an AirPlay speaker across the room can sit in the same group as happily as two identical wired speakers can. There is no setting anywhere that restricts a group to one connection type.
The catch is not compatibility, it is timing. A wired output keeps a tight, predictable clock. A Bluetooth or AirPlay output does not, because wireless audio has to buffer more heavily to survive radio interference and connection quality changes, which makes its clock coarser than a wired device's. macOS has to keep correcting the wireless side back into step with the rest of the group, and if the gap grows faster than the correction can close it, you hear a stutter or a brief dropout. It is a real risk worth planning for rather than a reason to avoid mixing connection types altogether. Our guide to why audio stutters on a Multi-Output Device covers the sample rate and drift correction settings that fix most of it.
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Download for MacWhat if the two sets are naturally very different volumes?
This is the part macOS genuinely does not handle. Two different sets of speakers, especially from two different manufacturers, rarely put out the same volume at the same setting. A small USB-powered pair and a larger AirPlay speaker across the room can sit a long way apart in natural loudness even before you account for distance. Once they are grouped into a Multi-Output Device, there is no per-device volume control anywhere in Audio MIDI Setup. Each device plays at whatever level it happened to be left at, and the one slider you do get, the system volume, moves every device in the group by the same proportion rather than levelling them out.
This is not a setting you have missed. It is a genuine gap in what a Multi-Output Device offers, and no amount of digging in System Settings closes it. The only way round it is to set each device to a sane starting level by hand, in Audio MIDI Setup, and accept that the group's one shared slider will always keep that same imbalance as you turn it up or down.
Chorus's Groups feature is built for exactly this. It combines your outputs the same way a Multi-Output Device does, but gives the group one real volume and a separate balance for every device inside it. Set the quieter set to 100% and the louder one to 40%, and that ratio holds every time you use the group, through one slider or one keyboard shortcut, with no trip back into Audio MIDI Setup required.
Which connection types actually work well together?
All of them will work. Not all of them will sound as tight. As a rough guide: two wired outputs, whatever their brand, are the most stable pairing a group can have, since both run on a predictable clock and rarely need much correction. A wired set paired with a single Bluetooth or AirPlay set is the next most common setup, and the one most likely to need drift correction turned on for the wireless side. Two wireless sets together, say a Bluetooth speaker and an AirPlay speaker, is the least predictable combination, because neither side offers the group a steady clock to lock onto.
None of this is a reason to avoid a particular pairing, only a reason to expect more tuning from a group with two wireless members than from one with none. Set both to the same sample rate in Audio MIDI Setup first, since a rate mismatch (commonly 44.1kHz against 48kHz) causes far more stuttering across mismatched sets than the connection type or the brand ever does.
For the step-by-step on building a Multi-Output Device, see Apple's own guide to Audio MIDI Setup.
Frequently asked questions
Does it matter if my two sets of speakers are different brands?
No. macOS does not check brand at all when it lists your audio devices, it only sees the connection type: built-in output, USB, Bluetooth, AirPlay, HDMI. Mix any brands you like, as long as each set shows up as its own separate output in Sound settings.
Can you combine a wired speaker set with a wireless one?
Yes. A Multi-Output Device, and a Chorus group, will include a wired set through a headphone jack or USB DAC alongside a Bluetooth or AirPlay set without issue. The trade-off is timing: wireless outputs run on a coarser clock than wired ones, so a mixed group is more likely to stutter than an all-wired one.
Why are my two sets of speakers different volumes when grouped?
Because macOS's Multi-Output Device has no per-device volume control at all. Each set plays at whatever level it was already set to before you built the group, and there is no slider anywhere in Audio MIDI Setup that changes that. Chorus's Groups feature adds one real volume for the whole group plus a separate balance for each device inside it.
Do different speaker brands need to share a sample rate?
They do not need to be the same brand, but they should be set to the same sample rate in Audio MIDI Setup. A mismatched rate, commonly 44.1kHz against 48kHz, is the most common cause of stutter in a mixed group, not the brands themselves.
How much does Chorus cost?
It is $4.99, paid once, after a 30-day free trial that needs no account and no card details. One licence covers up to three Macs, and it runs on macOS 13 or later on both Intel and Apple Silicon.
