Dual Speakers on Mac? Here is How to Do It

Bluetooth connection is present in most Mac machines and it helps us easily connect our wireless speakers or headphones to the machine and listen to our favorite music. On the other hand, we can also use a 3.5mm connector to connect our wired speakers or headphones to our Mac machine and enjoy our music.

Perfect, right?

Well, the problem appears when we want to listen to our music and use both the wired and wireless headphones or speakers simultaneously. If we connect both of them to our Mac machine, only one device will deliver audio. The other device will be muted and deliver no sound until you disconnect the active device.

Luckily there is something you can do about it and you can use both devices. The following tips will help you use dual speakers at the same time and the best part is that you won’t have to buy any additional hardware. Everything you need is your Mac machine and wired or external speakers for MacBook Pro or our headphones.

So, let’s see what you need to do!

Connect your dual speakers to the machine

First of all, you need to plug in the wired device and also connect the wireless one to your Mac. Now, find the Bluetooth icon and click on it. Select the right device and then select the Connect option. Both of your speakers will be connected and ready to use.

Create a Virtual Device

Mac machines have a built-in app which can help you here. You practically have to create a virtual device which is able to take two outputs on your machine. After you add the dual speakers it will function as one output device for your Mac machine.

What you need to find is the Audio MIDI setup app which you can find by clicking the Launchpad and then the Other option.

After you start the app, you will be able to create the virtual device by clicking the plus sign in the bottom-left corner and choosing Create Multi-Output Device.

Click on the device you have just created and check all the devices you want to use simultaneously and then check Drift Correction box for the other speaker.

Now you need to choose Use This Device For Sound Output by right-clicking the virtual device.

After this step your virtual device is ready for use. Now all you need is to play your favorite music and it will be delivered to both speakers connected to your Mac machine.

Setting the Virtual Device

The next step is to make your Mac send all the audio to the virtual device so that it can deliver it further to the dual speakers. This option can be found in the Mac settings menu.

Find the ”System preferences” by clicking the Apple logo. And then click on ”Sound”. Find the Output tab and click on it. There you have to select your virtual audio device and set it as a default speaker.

This change will be saved automatically by your Mac machine.

Test your dual speakers

Now all the audio coming from your mac, including the system sounds, will be played via the virtual device. You will be able to hear them on the speakers you have connected. The best thing you can do now is to test whether they are working properly.

Please note that you won’t be able to control the sound volume from the volume menu on your Mac machine. You will have to do it through the app or manual on the speakers.

What if you want to go back to defaults?

Maybe you don’t want to use multiple speakers anymore and want to go back to the defaults. Luckily, there is an easy way to do it. All you need to do is to remove the virtual device and here is what you need to do.

To start using the default Mac speakers go to the System preferences and then choose Sound, and after that Output. Find the Internal speakers on the list and select them.

To remove the Virtual Device you will have to launch the Audio MIDI setup app, choose the virtual device and click the minus sign to remove it from the list.

At the end

There are several good reasons why would you want to use dual speakers. Maybe you need to listen to your favorite music in your living room and your backyard at the same time. Thanks to this ability of your Mac machine you will easily make it possible. It won’t take too much of your time and the fact that it doesn’t require any additional investment makes it even better. All you have to do is follow the steps given in this article. It’s that simple!

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