No single best amplifier here. What decides it is what you have to drive, what you need to plug in, and how much of the system you want in one box.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | B | AudioControl Bijou 600 has more power - 100W against 80W 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 368 the better fit for a small room, and AudioControl Bijou 600 for a large room and a very large room. Match the amplifier to the room you actually have, not the one you want. |
| Grip on hard loads | B | AudioControl Bijou 600 holds up better into a 4-ohm load: its output nearly doubles to 200W, where the other barely increases. That matters with demanding speakers far more than the 8-ohm figure does. |
| Noise floor | A | NAD C 368 is the quieter design on paper - 98dB against 95dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | evenly matched | Both have a DAC on board with much the same capability. |
| Analogue inputs | A | NAD C 368 takes more analogue sources - 2 against 1. |
| Phono stage | depends | NAD C 368 has a built-in phono stage (MM) and AudioControl Bijou 600 does not. Decisive if you own a turntable, completely irrelevant if you do not - and an outboard phono stage is easy to add later either way. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Shelf space | depends | AudioControl Bijou 600 takes up about 71% less shelf area (534cm² against 1840cm²), and it is 178mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | B | AudioControl Bijou 600 costs less - $899 against $1,199 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | AudioControl Bijou 600 is the cheaper watt - about $9 per watt against $15. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A NAD C 368 B AudioControl Bijou 600
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?
AudioControl Bijou 600 has the edge on paper, though not by much. The rows marked "depends" are more likely to decide this than the score is. If your speakers are a difficult load - 4 ohms nominal, big woofers, or a sensitivity in the low 80s - AudioControl Bijou 600 is the safer partner, because how an amplifier behaves when the impedance drops matters more than its 8-ohm rating. If you play records, NAD C 368 saves you buying a phono stage; if you do not, ignore that row entirely.
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.