4 Zone Speaker Selector with Individual Volume Control by AVX Audio

UPDATE - After over a year, the unit meets my expectations so I upgraded to 3 stars (from 2). ORIGINAL REVIEW: It does what it is supposed to do, sort of. The jumpers, located inside the unit, which require disassembling the case to access, are definitely an issue. As another reviewer mentioned, the jumpers are not shipped in the position specifically described as being set to before shipping. And the literature in the box is contradictory in at least two places with respect to which position the jumpers should be set. I emailed and called the company regarding the jumpers. They did their best to help me and even emailed me a chart, but it still wasn't right: I have a 6 ohm receiver and 6 ohm speakers; the chart addresses 4 ohm and 8 ohm equipment only, so figuring out where to set the jumpers for each of the zones just ended up being a guessing game. Hope I don't burn up my amplifier. The other big issue with this unit is volume drop. Before using this unit, three zones wired in series with stereo speakers were plenty loud with my receiver set to 14 (out of 30 max) on the volume dial. Of course you don't want to run three sets of speakers in series, which was my initial reason for buying this unit, which boasts impedance overload protection. After I split up the rooms as zones patched through the unit, I have to crank the volume up to 23 (out of 30 max) just to hear it. And at full volume (30 out of 30) it is noticeably quieter than if I just skipped the zone control unit altogether. It's nice to have individual zone control, but with this unit, that capability comes at a cost. And the impedance protection is anybody's guess with those confusing jumpers.

This does the job, but you will need to open up the unit (12 screws!) to set the impedance jumpers to the correct position. The scanty instructions state that the unit is set to 8 ohms/X2 before shipping, but when I opened it up, all were at X4. So, in other words, you can't trust that it is set to what it says it is - and if you actually want to protect your amp from being overloaded, you will need to confirm or change the settings. (And if you have differently rated speakers, you will end up there anyway.) As for the "tight" inputs, it states pretty clearly that 14-16awg wire is best and that works just fine. If you are trying to put something larger in, then yeah, you will probably have some difficulties.

I bought this to add separate zones around the pool, patio, and in the kitchen and it works great. The individual volume controls make it very easy to adjust each one as needed. Currently using this with an older Harmon Kardon AVR and no problems with sound.The only negative so far is that the inputs on the back and very tiny and close together. I could not get 12 gauge in there and the flexible banana plugs I got to fix this still struggled to go in. Just don't move it as the speaker wires might come out again. But once hooked up it's fine.

This made our system easy to control. We have a Dennon Receiver and there is an app for the iphone/ ipad. We can control the volume for the zones on our iphone devices! It's great! However, you can only have 2 zones to do that.... main zone and zone 2 (all other rooms) With this speaker selector, I can control each zone separately. It also comes with little labels for each knob (Ie Patio, living room, Master bedroom, and garage). Love that too.

Great product, but was not set for 8 ohm speakers as it should have been. If you buy the unit, and you can barely hear your speakers in all zones, then read the instruction booklet. To change it over, open the box (like 12 small screws), and move the 4 fuses over one notch (the manual and actually seeing it makes it way more easier).

It does it's intended job. My biggest complaint is the spear wire connections are tiny and very clise together. If you don't trim your wires perfectly, there is a good chance of shorting them.

Straightforward hookup. It allows me to play my stereo to speakers in the living room, kitchen, master bath and outdoor patio. Since house had speakers pre-installed in 2 zones, it was most cost-effective way to go.

I would have given this item 5 stars if the knobs had indicators to show you what level they are set to. They increment between 0-12 I believe, with a slight click as you turn the volume knobs, but no visual indication.