AirPlay goes to full volume when going to Mac after another device?

[JimAtLaw]

I bought a Bowers & Wilkins Zeppelin Air this week (and of course, it went on sale for over a hundred dollars off today... that'll teach me to ever buy peripherals at an Apple Store in November...), and whenever I AirPlay with my Mac (MBP 2010 running Snow Leopard), it starts at full volume, which is a problem - it's deafening.

It keeps its volume setting if I don't connect another device, such that I can exit iTunes or sleep the Mac and it will revert to the prior setting, but if I connect to the Zeppelin using my iPhone or iPad, then the next time I use the Mac, it will play at full volume. Also, the volume controls on the Mac have no effect on the volume coming out of the speaker - only the speaker's separate volume controls work, and the remote does not seem to affect the Mac at all either - I can use the remote to, e.g., pause or skip songs on my iOS devices, but on the Mac, these buttons do nothing in iTunes.

The remote thing is annoying but I could live with it. Having the speaker start at full volume every time? No - this will go back if I can't figure a solution here. Any and all thoughts and suggestions much appreciated.

 

[JimAtLaw]

Update: I figured it out - the speaker is using only the iTunes volume, not system volume, and not adjusting that iTunes volume in any way that is remembered when I set it through the speaker.

When I play iTunes on the Mac through my other external speakers, it adjusts volume based on the system volume and not just iTunes volume, but for some reason AirPlay seems to ignore the system volume and use only the iTunes volume (which, not having used AirPlay before now, I've always left at 100%).

Then when I adjust the volume on the Zeppelin using the remote or the control on the speaker, it does not permanently adjust the iTunes volume correspondingly like it does on the iOS devices, so that the next time I go back to iTunes on the Mac, it's once again at full volume.

You might be able to work around this by turning the iTunes volume way down for the AirPlay speaker and then turning it back up each time you want to use other speakers, but this is error prone (i.e. you're likely to forget to turn it back down sometimes and end up blasting audio through the Zeppelin) and clunky IMHO. Given the problems with using AirPlay with non-iTunes audio sources, etc., it's not worth it IMHO - I'll get some wired speakers.