Maybe you don't understand the issue, but are fast to make your own conclusions about other people making false narrative. The issue lies with system wide settings. When you select HomePod as your sound output like this:
View attachment 1925513
Go ahead, try it. And then play anything, you can even play video in QuickTime and sound will lag behind video when skipping ahead or when you pause it sound will continue for another 2 seconds or so.
But when you select HomePod directly inside for example Music app, the aforementioned lag is not there.
View attachment 1925515
I have Mac Mini M1. And no, wi-fi is not really an issue as it works with my iPhone without any issues (i.e. sending sound from Safari to my HomePod works without any lag whatsoever).
It's a longstanding macOS issue. And it's a known fact that macOS uses AirPlay 1 for system wide sound output but was said to move to AirPlay 2 (lag free) in Monterey (or was it Big Sur even?), but hasn't done so as it's still broken in
macOS 12.0.1.