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 | evenly matched | Effectively the same output - 75W against 80W into 8 ohms is under 1dB, which is not an audible difference in loudness. |
| Grip on hard loads | A | LEAK Stereo 230 holds up better into a 4-ohm load: its output increases strongly to 115W, where the other barely increases. That matters with demanding speakers far more than the 8-ohm figure does. |
| Noise floor | A | LEAK Stereo 230 is the quieter design on paper - 109dB against 98dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | A | Both decode on board, but only LEAK Stereo 230 handles DSD. |
| Streaming | B | Only NAD C 368 BluOS-2i has AirPlay 2, Roon and BluOS. |
| Analogue inputs | evenly matched | The same number of line-level inputs (2). |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Amplifier class | depends | LEAK Stereo 230 is Class A/B and NAD C 368 BluOS-2i 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 | LEAK Stereo 230 takes up about 21% less shelf area (1454cm² against 1840cm²). |
| Price | evenly matched | Priced within a few per cent of each other. |
A LEAK Stereo 230 B NAD C 368 BluOS-2i
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?
LEAK Stereo 230 has the edge on paper, though not by much. The rows marked "depends" are more likely to decide this than the score is. If your speakers are a difficult load - 4 ohms nominal, big woofers, or a sensitivity in the low 80s - LEAK Stereo 230 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.