all sorted now via Sony support

Works a treat

Sounds strange that.

My Denon AVR has a setting to automatically sync volumes from different sources to the same level. Maybe there's a similar setting on yours?

its had built in airplay

basically on the iphone or ipad one notch up on the volume from mute gives 4 or 5 on the amp but is very loud

Therefore if someone was to connect via airplay and have there phone volume half way it would possibly blow the speakers

Kind of defeats the method of having airplay

[Edited on 19-12-2012 by whitter45]

Does the AVR have Airplay build in or are you using something like an AppleTV or Airport Express?

I find that with streaming to my AppleTV I have to have the volume on the transmitting device, whether it be phone, iPad or labtop, at about 75% to match that of other devices.
Not that 100% is excessively loud as you seem to experience...

Anyone had experinces of very loud playback via airplay on av receivers

I literally cannot go above about 7 on the volume on my amp

very small increments on the volume control gives huge increase in output

Cheers