Yes, a Mac can play the same audio through a TV and a separate set of speakers at once. macOS treats a TV as just another output, whether it is wired over HDMI or an AirPlay-capable smart TV, so it can join a Multi-Output Device alongside any other speaker already connected.
The setup itself takes two minutes in a system tool Apple already ships. The part worth slowing down for is what happens after: TVs, especially over HDMI, are not fast outputs, and pairing one with a speaker that has no such delay can produce an echo-like effect rather than one clean sound reaching both rooms. Here is how to build the group, what actually causes the lag, and how to tell whether this setup will work for what you want before you commit to it.
How do I combine a TV and speakers into one output on a Mac?
Open Audio MIDI Setup, found in Applications > Utilities. Click the plus button in the bottom-left corner and choose Create Multi-Output Device. A list of every audio output the Mac currently sees appears on the right, and a TV shows up in that list the same as any speaker does, whether it is connected over HDMI or discovered over AirPlay. Tick the TV and tick the other speaker or speakers, then select the new Multi-Output Device as the Mac's output, either in Audio MIDI Setup itself or from the Sound menu in System Settings.
From that point, anything the Mac plays goes to both at once. macOS makes no distinction between a TV and a normal speaker here: both are just entries in a list of outputs it knows how to send a stream to, so the process is identical to combining any two ordinary speakers.
Why does the TV's sound lag behind the speaker?
A TV is rarely a fast output. Over HDMI in particular, many sets process audio before they play it: decoding a Dolby Digital or DTS surround stream, running room correction, or applying their own upmixing. That processing takes real, measurable time, commonly somewhere in the tens of milliseconds and sometimes much more depending on which processing modes are switched on, and it happens entirely inside the TV, separate from anything the Mac is sending. A directly connected desk speaker in the same group has none of that delay, so the two outputs that are supposed to be playing in unison drift apart. The result sounds like a faint echo or a doubled note rather than one sound coming from two places.
An AirPlay-capable smart TV adds a second source of lag on top, since the audio has to travel over the network before the TV even starts its own processing, so the gap to a wired speaker in the same group can be larger again. We cover exactly where every kind of Mac audio delay comes from, Bluetooth codecs, HDMI processing, and grouped outputs, in our guide to why Mac audio lags behind video. Chorus cannot close that gap. Reducing a TV's own processing delay is entirely the TV's own hardware behaviour, outside any app's control.
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Download for MacWhen is this actually worth doing?
The setup earns its place when the TV and the speaker are serving genuinely different purposes rather than trying to reproduce the same moment perfectly in two places. Watching something on the TV in the living room while wanting the same sound to reach a kitchen or desk speaker in another room is a good fit, since nobody in either location is comparing the two in real time, and a small mismatch in timing is not something a listener in one room can hear against a listener in another.
It works far less well when both outputs sit close enough together that you can hear them at once, watching the TV screen while a nearby desk speaker plays the identical audio a beat later. That is exactly the scenario that produces the echo-like effect, because your ears catch both copies of the same sound close enough in time to register as two events instead of one. The honest advice is to build the group and actually listen to it in the room you plan to use it in before deciding it is the right setup. A delay that is inaudible from one room away can be obviously wrong sitting a few feet from both speakers.
What can't the free route do?
Audio MIDI Setup builds the group, but it has no concept of switching between setups on demand. If you also listen to just the TV sometimes, or just the desk speaker on its own, macOS has no memory of those as separate configurations, so rebuilding the group has to be done by hand each time, and whichever app is playing has no way to be kept out of a group that the rest of the Mac's audio joins.
Chorus turns each combination into a Group you switch to by name or with a keyboard shortcut, so "TV plus speaker" and "just the TV" are two saved setups rather than something rebuilt from scratch. Per-App Audio can also keep one app, a call or a game, off the TV group while everything else plays through it. Chorus still cannot touch the TV's own processing delay: no app can, since that delay is fixed in the TV's hardware.
For more on streaming audio from a Mac, see Apple's own guide to using AirPlay.
Frequently asked questions
Can a Mac play audio through a TV and speakers at the same time?
Yes. macOS treats a TV as just another audio output, whether it is connected over HDMI or through AirPlay, so it can be added to a Multi-Output Device alongside a separate speaker or pair of speakers. Both play the same sound together.
How do I set up a TV and speakers as one output on a Mac?
Open Audio MIDI Setup, click the plus button in the bottom-left corner, choose Create Multi-Output Device, then tick both the TV and the other speaker in the list on the right. Select that new device as the Mac's output and both play together.
Why does the sound from my TV lag behind my other speaker?
Many TVs, especially over HDMI, add their own processing delay before they play a sound, decoding surround formats or running room correction. A directly connected speaker in the same group has none of that delay, so the two can drift out of sync and produce an echo-like effect.
Can Chorus fix the delay between a TV and a speaker?
No. The delay comes from the TV's own hardware processing, entirely outside any app's control, including Chorus. What Chorus can do is make it fast to switch between a TV-and-speaker group and a single low-latency output with a keyboard shortcut, so you are not stuck with whichever setup causes the echo.
Does this work with a smart TV over AirPlay instead of HDMI?
Yes, an AirPlay-capable TV shows up as its own output in the same list as a wired one, and can be added to a Multi-Output Device the same way. AirPlay carries its own network delay on top of any processing the TV applies, so the same lag check is worth doing before relying on the setup.
