Niles SS-4 Speaker Selector

Perfect solution when you want to increase your zones beyond the constraints of your receiver. For example, even though my receiver will handle 4 zones (where Zone 1 is my main theater room), each zone I add (if I want to choose powered zone), subtracts from the number of active speakers available in Zone 1. For example, my powered Zone 2 reduces Zone 1 capability from 9.2 to 7.2 and I'm OK with that. But I am using unpowered Zone 3 (utilizing another amp) for my kitchen so I don't further reduce Zone 1 to 5.2. I am using this Niles SS-4 to further split Zone 3 to drive speakers in my Gazebo and Family room. That is, I can play Zone 3 in the kitchen, family room, and gazebo in any combination (e.g., any one or two or all three) with the option of adding another zone since the SS-4 allows up to four. Without the electronics in this switch box which maintains a minimum impedance level, you would burn up your amp in seconds .

This product works as described. My niggle is how small the connections are and how close together Niles puts them. If any of the little wires making up the cable spread even a little, they touch their neighbors because the wires are so, so close together. You have to strip the speakers so carefully, and then the holes which receive them are so small that it is easy to end up messing up the wires when you try to push them in. I have banana connectors on everything else - but they won't fit in these silly little holes. Add to this that often you are trying to hook up to components in a cabinet where access is not easy (e.g reaching around an amp to hook up) and I score this box lower than I would because of the difficulty of hookup...

This product is high quality. I used it to connect 2 pairs of 6 ohm speakers for front and rear sound. A 8 ohm speaker for center sound. Also a powered subwoofer using a Morel mps-hl speaker level to line level converter. The sound quality is very good. It has protection circuitry. In my case, it made hooking this system up so much easier than daisy chaining all the speakers . I think most people use this unit for multiroom systems but it's great for a 1 in, 4 out speaker hub too like I used it for.

The product is well made and looks great. I have had it installed for about a week and its working great. Once its connected to the amp and speakers everything is fine, its just that the connectors are small and fiddly, and it is quite difficult to push speaker wires into them. The fact that the connector blocks can be removed from the chassis seems like a good thing until you realize that the spring action of the terminals is so strong that you can't get any leverage unless the blocks are plugged into the chassis. And not only are the terminals small but the wires are close together. After a while I figured out that the only way wires will go in at all is on an upward trajectory because that's where the space is when you force the contact spring open. All in all, plugging 18 gauge wire was hard, 16 more difficult. I wouldn't want to try 14 gauge. The box is not powered and the directions tell you to be sure to push the button to engage the protection circuit if you turn on more that two pairs of speakers. My wife said, "Just leave it on all the time." She's right. My amp has more than enough power to drive one or two speakers with the extra impedance and pushing the button just attenuates the volume a little. We mostly run with all the speakers on anyway and there is plenty of volume even at - 50db. My Yamaha HTR-5650 is just loafing driving 8 wall speakers through the Niles SS4. I'm glad I bought it, but if they made the connectors big enough to accept banana plugs it would be a huge improvement.

This Nile SS-4 that I bought was a surprise to me. This is a second one that I bought from Amazon hoping that this will be the same as the first .This one disappointed me. The recepticle (wire receiver mechanism) is absolutely flimsy and hard to operate. I hardly return things to the merchant or complain.In this case I would wish Amazon or the manufacturer will do something to replace it with a new speaker selector which has a standard wire receiver that is easy to operate.

Debated between this and the Speakercraft S4DC but decided to go with the SS-4 because it was highly recommended by many folks in the A/V business. In my household, I have 2 zones setup: my main zone (downstairs) is for my home theater so it has a 7.1 surround sound setup; the 2nd zone is upstairs and splits between 3 bedrooms (2 speakers per room). Over the last year that I've been using this, haven't had a single issue running all channels at once (no overheating or degradation of audio quality). All in all, couldn't be happier with this purchase, especially when it's 1/2 the price of many competitors' speaker selectors.

The quality of the speaker connections is poor. This is my second switch as I broke the speaker connectors trying to connect the wires.

Horrible design. I thought folks were just being weenies but there was no way to get wires in here without a huge painful effort.