Different price classes - NAD C 368 BluOS-2i costs roughly 1.8x what Denon PMA-900HNE does. Expect it to lead on paper; the question is whether you will hear the difference through the speakers you own.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | A | NAD C 368 BluOS-2i has more power - 80W against 50W into 8 ohms. That is about 2dB, so it plays usefully louder before it runs out and has more in hand on peaks. |
| Room size | depends | We rate NAD C 368 BluOS-2i the better fit for a mid-size room, a large room and a very large room, and Denon PMA-900HNE for desk or near-field listening and a small room. Match the amplifier to the room you actually have, not the one you want. |
| Grip on hard loads | B | Denon PMA-900HNE holds up better into a 4-ohm load: its output increases strongly to 85W, where the other barely increases. That matters with demanding speakers far more than the 8-ohm figure does. |
| Noise floor | B | Denon PMA-900HNE is the quieter design on paper - 105dB against 98dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | B | Both decode on board, but only Denon PMA-900HNE handles DSD. |
| Streaming | evenly matched | Only NAD C 368 BluOS-2i has BluOS; only Denon PMA-900HNE has HEOS. Neither list is longer in a way that matters - check the one service you actually pay for. |
| Analogue inputs | B | Denon PMA-900HNE takes more analogue sources - 3 against 2. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Amplifier class | depends | NAD C 368 BluOS-2i is Class D and Denon PMA-900HNE 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 | Denon PMA-900HNE costs less - $949 against $1,749 at list. |
A NAD C 368 BluOS-2i B Denon PMA-900HNE
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?
Denon PMA-900HNE is the easier recommendation: it leads on most of the measured areas and costs less. Take NAD C 368 BluOS-2i if one of the "depends" rows above describes your system. If your speakers are a difficult load - 4 ohms nominal, big woofers, or a sensitivity in the low 80s - Denon PMA-900HNE is the safer partner, because how an amplifier behaves when the impedance drops matters more than its 8-ohm rating. 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 - NAD C 368 BluOS-2i has the headroom, and headroom is what stops an amplifier hardening up on peaks. At desk distance or in a small room, 50 watts is already more than most people ever use, and the extra 30 watts would be headroom you pay for and never hear - we rate NAD C 368 BluOS-2i poorly for near-field use for exactly that reason.
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.