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 379 has more power - 80W against 60W into 8 ohms. That is about 1.2dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Grip on hard loads | B | Marantz PM7000N holds up better into a 4-ohm load: its output increases modestly to 80W, where the other barely increases. That matters with demanding speakers far more than the 8-ohm figure does. |
| Noise floor | B | Marantz PM7000N is the quieter design on paper - 115dB against 95dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | A | Both decode on board. NAD C 379 goes higher - 384kHz against 192kHz. Very few recordings exist above 192kHz, so treat this as headroom, not as sound quality. |
| Streaming | B | Only Marantz PM7000N has AirPlay 2, Roon and HEOS. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Amplifier class | depends | NAD C 379 is Class D and Marantz PM7000N 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 | Marantz PM7000N costs less - $1,299 against $1,499 at list. |
A NAD C 379 B Marantz PM7000N
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?
Marantz PM7000N 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 - Marantz PM7000N 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.