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 - 70W against 80W into 8 ohms is under 1dB, which is not an audible difference in loudness. |
| Grip on hard loads | A | NAD C 359S holds up better into a 4-ohm load: its output increases strongly to 120W, where the other barely increases. That matters with demanding speakers far more than the 8-ohm figure does. |
| Bass control | evenly matched | Similar damping factor (210 vs 300). |
| Noise floor | B | NAD C 368 is the quieter design on paper - 98dB against 90dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | A | Both decode on board, but only NAD C 359S handles MQA. |
| Streaming | A | Only NAD C 359S has Roon and BluOS. |
| Analogue inputs | A | NAD C 359S takes more analogue sources - 3 against 2. |
| Room to grow | B | Only NAD C 368 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 359S is Class A/B and NAD C 368 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. |
| Price | B | NAD C 368 costs less - $1,199 against $1,299 at list. |
A NAD C 359S B NAD C 368
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 359S measures better, NAD C 368 costs about 8% less. With most speakers in most rooms that gap is smaller in practice than it looks here. If your speakers are a difficult load - 4 ohms nominal, big woofers, or a sensitivity in the low 80s - NAD C 359S 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.