These are not the same size of amplifier: NAD C 388 BluOS-2i has roughly 2x the power of Cambridge Audio Evo 75. That is about 3dB, so it is a question of room size and how hard your speakers are to drive, not of one being the better amplifier.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | A | NAD C 388 BluOS-2i has more power - 150W against 75W into 8 ohms. That is about 3dB, so it plays usefully louder before it runs out and has more in hand on peaks. |
| Room size | depends | We rate NAD C 388 BluOS-2i the better fit for a large room and a very large room, and Cambridge Audio Evo 75 for desk or near-field listening, a small room and a mid-size room. Match the amplifier to the room you actually have, not the one you want. |
| Grip on hard loads | B | Cambridge Audio Evo 75 holds up better into a 4-ohm load: its output nearly doubles to 150W, where the other barely increases. That matters with demanding speakers far more than the 8-ohm figure does. |
| Built-in DAC | B | Both decode on board, but only Cambridge Audio Evo 75 handles DSD. |
| Streaming | evenly matched | Only NAD C 388 BluOS-2i has BluOS; only Cambridge Audio Evo 75 has Chromecast. Neither list is longer in a way that matters - check the one service you actually pay for. |
| Analogue inputs | A | NAD C 388 BluOS-2i takes more analogue sources - 2 against 1. |
| Phono stage | depends | NAD C 388 BluOS-2i has a built-in phono stage (MM) and Cambridge Audio Evo 75 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 | Cambridge Audio Evo 75 takes up about 35% less shelf area (1190cm² against 1840cm²), and it is 51mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | A | NAD C 388 BluOS-2i costs less - $2,249 against $2,499 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | A | NAD C 388 BluOS-2i is the cheaper watt - about $15 per watt against $33. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A NAD C 388 BluOS-2i B Cambridge Audio Evo 75
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?
NAD C 388 BluOS-2i 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 - Cambridge Audio Evo 75 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 388 BluOS-2i has the headroom, and headroom is what stops an amplifier hardening up on peaks. At desk distance or in a small room, 75 watts is already more than most people ever use, and the extra 75 watts would be headroom you pay for and never hear - we rate NAD C 388 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.