Picking an amplifier


I have the following speakers:
NHT 2.1 Front LR 200W @ 6ohms
NHT AC1 Center 150W @ 8 ohms
NHT SW2 Subwoofer 200W @ 8 ohms
The rear speakers are inconsequential (and boxed up) they might come out to play when I move to bigger digs.
I’ve been using NHTs 214s and 216s, (think lightbulbs) but the market is drying up. I remain unconvinced they are worth the shipping & costs to repair.
My (current) short list of replacement amps:
Outlaw Audio model 770 7 (7 channels)
Bryston 9B ST (5 channels) (2 years left on warranty)
Parasound 5125 (5 channels)
The budget is $1000, I have located sources for all three at or below $1000.
Any/all discussion of suitability, repair outlook, and peanut shells welcome. From a listening perspective, I've been fine with the NADs, but am priced out of the newer models. Nuts, I might even repair the NADs if I find the right person with the skills & tools.

shalmaneser
Fun and games understanding audio:
http://h-cat.com/images/H_CAT_White_Paper.pdf

And the winner is: 
https://www.audiostream.com/content/holo-spring-dac-level-1

" Holy crap! I'd plugged in nine devices just to get my file to the DAC. But I had to admit that the sound and musical connection this Rube Goldberg playback chain provided was immensely better than what was possible with a laptop or even most dedicated servers connected directly to the DAC."

I'm losing count of the papers written on the dubious digital improvements over vinyl->amplifier->speakers. It gets worse: most of the DACs don't improve on the original DAC technology. The improvements come from a host of analogue pre/post DAC fiddling at great expense. 
auxinput: I've resolved one problem I've been having - every once in a while windows OS & software demonstrates its dubious roots of lack of 7x24 orientation and things need rebooting. (Microsoft: 3rd rate software company with top shelf marketing and lawyers) It happens less and less frequently and sometimes it appears to be hardware related. If civilization was created the same way which software is, the first woodpecker to come along would be the end of civilization. The other amp just needs someone to go through it and find whatever's going on. 
Thanks for the update on the digital world. Eventually MOBOs will fold a decent DAC into the consumer level. Until then, Rube Goldberg lives! I think I've got a PCI card slot free. If not, I'm building another computer soon and will configure it appropriately for the AV room. 
I'm waiting on upgrading the Sony till I can drop another $1K on a component. So far the Anthem 5/50 amps are very appealing. The professional reviews and consumer comments have negligible negatives and it's amazing how excited people get when they are writing about them. Or someone worked very hard to organize a positive campaign. 
auxinput: COAX vs optical. Sounds like they fudged the data path. I'll have to study what they did, because the medium should have no bearing on what's being communicated. 

Yeah, you would think that COAX and optical should sound exactly the same.  Based on electrical engineer point of view, it should be the same and it's just data.  But from an audiophile listening standpoint, the COAX will just sound better.  The optical can get very good if you use a high end glass fiber cable such as Lifatec or Wire World Supernova, but the COAX will just sound better in the end.  The COAX also has a more natural ambience to the sound.  You can read up on it if you wish.

The Anthem 5/50 amps are nice choices.  The MCA 50 has a power supply that is 50% larger than the MCA 5.  The MCA-50 has 150,000uf capacitance, where the MCA-5 has 100,000uf.  This means the MCA-50 may be a more refined sound and it will also have a bit more muscle for the bass/midbass (even at lower volumes!).  Obviously, the MCA-50 costs more.  The Anthem amps will be a lot cleaner/faster/detailed sounding than the NAD, and probably more power/muscle in the bass.

Okay, I remember the reasoning behind why the PCI version of the Xonar Essence card (ST version) was better.  It had to do with the PCI bus clock speed, which is 33Mhz.  For audio data, you really don't need a super fast bus.  The PCIE bus clock speed is in the gigaherz range (2.5Ghz / 5.0Ghz / 8.0Ghz).  I think this created much more problems for jitter in the data.  The 33Mhz PCI interface just worked better and was more forgiving for sending audio bitstream data.