Siblings in NAD's Classic range, so they share a design and a house sound. It comes down to power, features and price.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | evenly matched | Effectively the same output - 40W against 40W into 8 ohms is under 1dB, which is not an audible difference in loudness. |
| Grip on hard loads | evenly matched | Both behave much the same into 4 ohms - output barely increases (40W and 40W). |
| Noise floor | A | NAD C 328 is the quieter design on paper - 100dB against 95dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | A | NAD C 328 has a DAC on board; the other needs an external one, which is another box, another power lead and another purchase. |
| Analogue inputs | B | NAD C316BEE V2 takes more analogue sources - 5 against 2. |
| Room to grow | A | Only NAD C 328 offers preamp outputs - which decides whether you can add a subwoofer or a power amplifier later without replacing the box. |
| Amplifier class | depends | NAD C 328 is Class D and NAD C316BEE V2 is Class A/B. Class D runs cool and draws almost nothing at idle; Class A/B runs warm and is the long-established mainstream choice. Modern examples of both measure well - judge by the rest of the page. |
| Price | B | NAD C316BEE V2 costs less - $499 against $699 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | NAD C316BEE V2 is the cheaper watt - about $12 per watt against $17. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A NAD C 328 B NAD C316BEE V2
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?
NAD C 328 is ahead, but on only 1 of the measured areas, and it costs about 40% more. That is a lot of money for a narrow margin - NAD C316BEE V2 is the sensible buy unless a specific feature above decides it for you. If you already own a DAC or a streamer, the built-in one is money you are paying twice for, and NAD C316BEE V2 becomes the more rational buy. Think about the whole system: the roughly $200 saved by taking the cheaper one would buy better speakers or a subwoofer, which does more for the sound than the difference between two competent amplifiers.
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.