One is a streaming all-in-one and the other is an amplifier. Judge them on how many boxes you want and what you already own, not on the spec sheet alone.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | A | Audiolab 7000A has more power - 70W against 50W into 8 ohms. That is about 1.5dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Room size | depends | We rate Audiolab 7000A the better fit for a mid-size room, a large room and a very large room, and NAD C 338 for desk or near-field listening and a small room. Match the amplifier to the room you actually have, not the one you want. |
| Grip on hard loads | A | Audiolab 7000A holds up better into a 4-ohm load: its output increases strongly to 110W, where the other barely increases. That matters with demanding speakers far more than the 8-ohm figure does. |
| Noise floor | A | Audiolab 7000A is the quieter design on paper - 110dB against 98dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | A | Both decode on board, but only Audiolab 7000A handles DSD and MQA. |
| Streaming | evenly matched | Only NAD C 338 has Chromecast. Neither list is longer in a way that matters - check the one service you actually pay for. |
| Analogue inputs | A | Audiolab 7000A takes more analogue sources - 3 against 2. |
| Room to grow | A | Only Audiolab 7000A offers a pre-out/main-in loop - which decides whether you can add a subwoofer or a power amplifier later without replacing the box. |
| Amplifier class | depends | Audiolab 7000A is Class A/B and NAD C 338 is Class D. Class A/B runs warm and is the long-established mainstream choice; Class D runs cool and draws almost nothing at idle. Modern examples of both measure well - judge by the rest of the page. |
| Price | B | NAD C 338 costs less - $799 against $999 at list. |
A Audiolab 7000A B NAD C 338
depends neither is better in the abstract - it turns on your room, your system or how you will use them. Only specs published for both amplifiers are judged; anything missing on either side is left out rather than guessed.
Which should you choose?
Audiolab 7000A leads across most of the measured areas for a fairly modest premium, so it is the easier pick if the budget stretches. NAD C 338 is the one to take if it does not. If your speakers are a difficult load - 4 ohms nominal, big woofers, or a sensitivity in the low 80s - Audiolab 7000A is the safer partner, because how an amplifier behaves when the impedance drops matters more than its 8-ohm rating.
What a spec sheet cannot show: how either sounds with your speakers, how the controls feel day to day, and what the app is like to live with - which is where most all-in-one amplifiers are actually won or lost. Power figures are the manufacturers' own and are not measured to a common standard, so treat small differences as noise. If you can hear both, that will tell you more than any row above.