AirPlay player controls – add option for “Native / None / MA join mode” configuration

[brochond]

Description

Currently, in the AirPlay device configuration, the Player controls section (Power / Volume / Mute) only allows selecting a media_player entity from Home Assistant or Music Assistant.

It would be great to have the ability to choose the control mode for each of these, such as:
• Native control → use the device’s native AirPlay join, volume, and power functions
• None → disable this control entirely
• MA join mode → link to a Music Assistant player for delegated control and synchronization

Motivation

This would provide more flexibility and better integration between native AirPlay behavior and Music Assistant features.
Key benefits include:

• Using native join/sync features of certain speakers (e.g., B&O, Denon) instead of AirPlay join
• Reducing quality loss or desynchronization issues introduced by AirPlay multiroom
• Centralizing control logic while keeping native device capabilities
• Enabling hybrid setups that leverage both MA and hardware-native grouping features

Example use case

For example, I use a B&O M5 declared as an AirPlay player.
In Player controls, I would like to configure it as follows:

• Power control → Native control
• Volume control → MA join mode (M5 Cuisine)
• Mute control → None

This setup would allow me to use the B&O native join mechanism (not AirPlay join) while keeping Music Assistant sync and control for other zones.

Suggested implementation

• Add an extra dropdown for each control in the AirPlay player settings:
  Control mode: [Native | None | MA join mode]
• Route the control logic accordingly:
  • Native → use direct AirPlay commands
  • MA join mode → link to MA player join/sync logic
  • None → ignore control

[marcelveldt]

We actually already offer this feature today the other way around. we can have an "airplay mode" on a native player provider.
This allows you to use airplay streaming if needed to a player that supports it and then handles all other calls natively with added benfit that you can group both airplay devices and the native ones seamlessly.

Currently we offer this feature on the sonos provider but as more native player providers get added to MA, this will be extended.

[brochond]

Yes, it’s good, but my equipment is too old to be integrated as a native MA device and not old enough to benefit from an adapter. I am therefore using an integration that works very well (Beoplay integration) and, to deal with the many streaming issues, AirPlay remains the most reliable technique. With my equipment, however, the native multiroom function works better than AirPlay. This feature could therefore be very useful for people in my situation.