Thanks for the extra info Gary
I'm 99% certain that AirPlay and/or iTunes is the issue now, with the network itself being fairly good!
I had a Denon app on my Smartphone, which was next to useless, but managed to get this working by downloading a newer version. It's a little flaky but does a reasonable job - sadly the interface on the phone is not as well featured as it appears
here but thinking this will do the job until I find an alternative to iTunes to use on the laptop! At least it would appear that the network and it's connections are robust enough!
Thanks for the help!
Dave