Hi @grl,

I think I need some more clarification on what you’re trying to do here. I assume by auto-sensing, you mean that the Niles receiver knows when the Port has started playing? If it can tell when a signal is being sent to it through the Ports line-out, then yes it should swap to it, though this wont turn the receiver on from being powered off. The Port does have a 12v trigger to switch amplifiers from standby to playback but generally this doesn’t work with receivers. 

I’m not sure about the touchpads, are they part of the Niles amp/receiver setup you have? Taking them out likely wont change anything with Sonos unless they have control over Sonos in some way.

If any other community user knows more about Niles amps or receivers then they could offer some additional advice, otherwise I would suggest reaching out to Niles to discuss this with their support, as they know more about their products than we would.

I hope this helps!