Apple Music on Apple Mac doesn't like Apple AirPods Max

I'm listening to Apple Music on my Apple AirPods Max while working on my Apple Mac Studio and having audio drop every 10 minutes to ten seconds. Audio randomly switches away from Apple AirPods Max to the Apple Mac Studio. I can't figure out why. I guess if I check a message on my iPhone 16 Pro (not Max) it reconnects to the silence on it? But then when I play and select Apple AirPods Max in the Apple AirPlay feature in Apple Music it still plays on the Apple Mac Studio? But I can see Apple AirPods Max are still connected in the Apple macOS Tahoe (26.0) menu bar. Perhaps it is related to the Apple iMac Pro (2017) running MacOS Seqoia (15.7) nearby? Perhaps something to do with Apple Universal Control? But also maybe it's the Apple iPhone.

I am fully ensconced in the Apple ecosystem. And everything just doesn't work. I tried to post in one of the many similar threads about this issue in the Apple Community Discussions dating back to 2019 (maybe earlier) - but they are all closed. It doesn't seem like the issue itself is closed though.