2. amps-preamps
  3. 131712-103828

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
shalmaneser OP
62 posts
 
knownothing: Tidal? 
shalmaneser OP
62 posts
 
auxinput: edit: I have the Sound Blaster USB external box - the original. TOSLINK before people could spell it! Sometime in the last couple of years they started cranking out updates to the thing like a Pez dispenser! For years they had done NOTHING with the USB external. 
I've been auditing PC A/V players. So far nothing stands up to Jriver. The differences between players can be astonishing. It looks like Jriver could use some more work on their user interface, but that could be said about any program. Joke: any program that is complete is obsolete. Given your analysis of HDMI & optical/coax, I'm probably going to be investing in more stuff. 
auxinput
2,920 posts
 

I have used JRiver for several years now and I love it.  It is highly configurable.  If you have a weird driver/pc/audio situation, odds are that JRiver can be configured to work with it.  It supports kernel streaming modes (which may or may not work for you).  I currently use Kernal streaming to the Asus Xonar Digital coax output and it sounds better than other modes.  These modes will bypass the Windows DirectSound driver layer (which is bad and it forces all audio to one sampling rate output).

It also supports playing audio through asio4all driver, which I needed to do when I was outputting to USB.  I'm sure you can do other configurations.  The DSP stack is awesome, if you need it. 

I have heard that JPlay is also has great performance, but since I started with JRiver, I never looked at other software.

I wonder where you will end up with all this. lol.

shalmaneser OP
62 posts
 
Check this out: 
https://www.globalsuppliesexpress.com/shop/item/?id=B0183EHM0K

auxinput
2,920 posts
 

That’s an interesting find. It’s hard to know for sure from the description if those RCA sockets are COAX SPDIF or if the card only supports toslink. You are paying for 7 analog channels, however. I think the Xonar Essence will still be better, but it’s your budget.

You could also look at this (I found this earlier this year when I was looking at alternate SPDIF interfaces -- there aren’t many):

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Musiland-digital-times-Sound-Card-PCI-S-PDIF-optical-Computer-PC-Internal-/272176487072?hash=item3f5efb9aa0:g:T2cAAOSwT6pVrVRu

I suspect it would perform better than the SEDNA card, but once again is the question of driver support in your O/S.  Personally, I would still pick the Asus even though it is much more expensive.

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