combining active and passive speakers in home studio

Also...doing a little research, it APPEARS that speaker level switchers (this Niles unit is rated at 100watts/200 peak), the quality doesn't have to be as "good", as compared to LINE level switchers.  Any comments on that??
 
Like I said, I don't hear the Niles unit inserted into the line (I've tried it with and without - albeit impossible to do a quick A/B test).  But it appears you can spend as much as you want on these kind of items.  Realizing keeping the monitoring system as best possible within a given budget, I'd not like to get *crazy* with pricing on switchers, etc.

This is what I use to send to my self powered speakers as well as my power amp and speaker systems:
 
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/SwitchWitch/
 

 
Some folks may say it's too expensive. You can build one yourself. It is just a box with switches and some connectors. I'll guess it's about $100 in parts.
 
I found it to be a real good value for me as it does the job you have been asking about and it fit right into my rack so it's not in my way.
 
The passive line level switchers are just simple switches and it would be very hard to not make one 99.9999% transparent if you just use the switcher to listen to one set of speakers at a time.
 
There is a caveat, if you use this switcher to send to multiple speakers simultaneously you will have a level drop.
 
 
Here are the guts of my ProCo:
 

 
You can get an active switcher which will be designed to prevent the level drop when you use any or all of the outputs. You have to be concerned about the quality of the active circuitry. If you are concerned, the price goes up. :-)
 
 
Some of the speaker level switchers have extra stuff in them to protect the amp when you are switching, so if I was going to worry about transparency I'd be more curious about what is going inside those devices.
 
best regards,
mike

That's an option, and then I'd be doing the switching in my computer, pointing to the outputs. However I use my analog mixer for monitoring control, and the Layla is PRE mixer.   But the more I research, I'm not sure I just can't just use a Y cord.
 
It would be nice to leave all things the same in my monitor path, and just have a way to quickly switch back and forth between the speakers.  I'm thinking the Y cord, or at the max...a line splitter.  Then if I blow something up, I'll know that wasn't the solution!

thanks Mike.   I think I'm getting off easy with the Y cord.  Maybe make my own box with a switch so it is "official".
 
Thanks for the replies.