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 | NAD C 338 has more power - 50W against 40W into 8 ohms. That is about 1dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Room size | depends | We rate NAD C 338 the better fit for a very large room, and NAD C316BEE V2 for desk or near-field listening. Match the amplifier to the room you actually have, not the one you want. |
| Grip on hard loads | evenly matched | Both behave much the same into 4 ohms - output barely increases (50W and 40W). |
| Bass control | A | NAD C 338 has the higher damping factor (300 vs 200), which usually means a tighter grip on a woofer. Above about 100 the returns flatten out, so read this as a tendency rather than a ranking. |
| Noise floor | A | NAD C 338 is the quieter design on paper - 98dB against 95dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | A | NAD C 338 has a DAC on board; the other needs an external one, which is another box, another power lead and another purchase. |
| 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 | B | NAD C316BEE V2 takes more analogue sources - 5 against 2. |
| Room to grow | A | Only NAD C 338 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 338 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 $799 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | NAD C316BEE V2 is the cheaper watt - about $12 per watt against $16. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A NAD C 338 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?
The usual trade-off: NAD C 338 measures better, NAD C316BEE V2 costs about 38% less. With most speakers in most rooms that gap is smaller in practice than it looks here. 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 $300 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.