The idea is to be able to take a call on my phone and receive notifications on my laptop while developing on my PC. It'd also be nice for streaming stuff in general.
As many people who have also looked into this stuff probably already know, interactive audio is really sensitive to latency. I've given it a quick shot by running pulse over the network, but honestly I wasn't impressed. I've given up for now, but some suggested software here might be good enough for a second shot, based on pipewire and its JACK backend this time.
I actually do something similar to this to run music for an online D&D campaign I'm in, except I use the http output so none of the other players have to install a client.
I do like the idea of the home audio server use case, I think it'll go on my back burner!
Our computers are beside each other so we need to use headsets, it's important to hear 360 audio for footsteps and other sounds in shooters.
We need to hear each other, game audio, teammates voices, and each other's voice.
Our voices can sometimes bleed through the headsets so we need there to be little to no lag to reduce reverb.
Plus the faster our voices reach each other the faster we can react to the command / callout.
We can't use voice channels in the game, discord, or anything that goes over the internet.
Currently we use teamspeak with a local server, which works well, looking to reduce it more.
Sometimes we simply play with one headphone ear partially off, but that ruins the surround sound.
Not that it's wrong to do or anything, just intrigued.