Google Home Max growing pains
I've been in search of a decent wireless speaker system for both music and video (via my JVC not so smart TV). This quest has basically left me with two choices: the Sonos Play 5 or the Google Home Max. Well, since I have fully bought into the Google home experience, the choice was pretty simple - Home Max (HM); in fact, two HMs for stereo sound. There are a number of reviews out there that compare the two systems, so I'll spare you those details.
Setup
Setting up HM is simple. A matter mostly of plugging the AC into a socket and adding the systems through the Google Home app. Although painless, it does take the typical click-through steps in Google Home, which becomes tedious over time (see below). Adding the TV wired connection was equally simple by using two RCA audio t0 3.5mm cables, which are plugged into the HM's 3.5mm input jacks - one for the Right HM and one for the Left HM. There was more of an issue with the HM recognizing the external input. To get the TV signal recognized by the HM, I had to reboot or hard power-cycle the HM while the input signal was active. Thereafter, the signal was recognized without a kick-in-the-pants.
The pain
The HM's audio fidelity is really good individually, but when two HMs are paired together, the true stereo is quite stunning (I understand that the HM frequency range is not as good as the Play 5, but for my simple ears, it is bliss). This paired state is really versatile for any audio input, including audio coming in through the 3.5mm external jack, but with one exception: when the audio needs to be synchronized with video (as with the TV), it doesn't work. There is literally a 2-3 second delay between when you see lip movements on the television and when you actually hear it on the HMs. Ugh! To be clear, this only occurs when two HMs are paired together. In this case, the primary HM picks up the input signal and seems to echo it over wireless to the subordinate HM, thereby causing the latency. When not paired, the two HMs graciously accept the two external input signals (Right and Left) from the TV and make TV-based audio very pleasing.
Living with the pain
OK, this is not news. Many people have complained about this problem with the HMs to Google, who's response is basically "we know about it, we are working on a fix, and we'll push it out if and when it is available". So for now, I live a dual HM life. For most of a week, I keep the HMs unpaired so that TV lips and audio are well synchronized and sound great. For those nostalgic musical moments when I want to rock-n-roll, I pair-up the HMs for true stereo sound that makes the house dance. Going from unpaired to paired in the Google Home app is pretty simple and with minimal clicks. The real pain is in the separation workflow: once separated, the subordinate HM must be re-inserted into the "home" subscription before anything fun can be done with it. This means adding it through a tedious set of clicks as if it were almost brand new. There is also the occasional recognition loss of the external input signal from the TV. I have found that it can be regained by "rebooting" the HM from the menu in the Home app while the input signal is active - this saves one from unplugging AC cords to do a hard power-cycle.
Conclusion
Ultimately, I would like to see the Google Home app support a TV mode so that paired HMs operate independently on the 3.5mm input signal, thus by-passing the paired stereo mode when the input signal is active. Or even better, to simply make the paired stereo mode work without the latency.