No single best amplifier here. What decides it is what you have to drive, what you need to plug in, and how much of the system you want in one box.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | A | Hegel H400 has more power - 250W against 150W into 8 ohms. That is about 2.2dB, so it plays usefully louder before it runs out and has more in hand on peaks. |
| Speaker load rating | A | Hegel H400 is rated down to 2 ohms against 4, so it is the safer partner for a low-impedance speaker. |
| Built-in DAC | A | Both decode on board, but only Hegel H400 handles MQA. |
| Streaming | evenly matched | The same streaming platforms and services on both. |
| Analogue inputs | A | Hegel H400 takes more analogue sources - 3 against 2. |
| Use with a TV | depends | Only Naim Nova PE has HDMI ARC, so the television can drive it directly and one remote controls the volume. If the system is for music only, this changes nothing. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Headphones | depends | Only Naim Nova PE has a headphone output. Worth something if you listen late, nothing if you never do. |
| Amplifier class | depends | Hegel H400 is Class A/B and Naim Nova PE 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. |
| Shelf space | depends | Naim Nova PE takes up about 39% less shelf area (1145cm² against 1892cm²), and it is 175mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | A | Hegel H400 costs less - $7,700 against $9,999 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | A | Hegel H400 is the cheaper watt - about $31 per watt against $67. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A Hegel H400 B Naim Nova PE
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?
Hegel H400 is the easier recommendation: it leads on most of the measured areas and costs less. Take Naim Nova PE if one of the "depends" rows above describes your system. Start with the room. In a large or open-plan room, or with speakers that are hard to drive - low sensitivity, or an impedance that dips - Hegel H400 has the headroom, and headroom is what stops an amplifier hardening up on peaks. At desk distance or in a small room, 150 watts is already more than most people ever use, and the extra 100 watts would be headroom you pay for and never hear - we rate Hegel H400 poorly for near-field use for exactly that reason. If this sits under a television, Naim Nova PE is the one to buy - HDMI ARC means the TV remote controls the volume and there is no second box in the way.
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.