These are not the same size of amplifier: Michi M8 has roughly 7.8x the power of Naim Nova PE. That is about 8.9dB, so it is a question of room size and how hard your speakers are to drive, not of one being the better amplifier.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | A | Michi M8 has more power - 1170W against 150W into 8 ohms. That is about 8.9dB - a different class of amplifier rather than a bigger version of the same one, and far more than most rooms will ever ask for. |
| Grip on hard loads | evenly matched | Both behave much the same into 4 ohms - output increases strongly (1800W and 250W). |
| Built-in DAC | B | Naim Nova PE has a DAC on board; the other needs an external one, which is another box, another power lead and another purchase. |
| Analogue inputs | evenly matched | The same number of line-level inputs (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. |
| Headphones | depends | Only Naim Nova PE has a headphone output. Worth something if you listen late, nothing if you never do. |
| Amplifier class | depends | Michi M8 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 49% less shelf area (1145cm² against 2255cm²), and it is 200mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | A | Michi M8 costs less - $9,499 against $9,999 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | A | Michi M8 is the cheaper watt - about $8 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 Michi M8 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?
Michi M8 has the edge on paper, though not by much. The rows marked "depends" are more likely to decide this than the score is. 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 - Michi M8 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 1020 watts would be headroom you pay for and never hear - we rate Michi M8 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.