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 | A | NAD C 388 has more power - 150W against 80W into 8 ohms. That is about 2.7dB, so it plays usefully louder before it runs out and has more in hand on peaks. |
| Room size | depends | We rate NAD C 388 the better fit for a large room and a very large room, and Cambridge Audio CXA81 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 CXA81 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. |
| Noise floor | B | Cambridge Audio CXA81 is the quieter design on paper - 105dB against 95dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | B | Both decode on board, but only Cambridge Audio CXA81 handles DSD. |
| Analogue inputs | B | Cambridge Audio CXA81 takes more analogue sources - 5 against 2. |
| Phono stage | depends | NAD C 388 has a built-in phono stage (MM) and Cambridge Audio CXA81 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. |
| Amplifier class | depends | NAD C 388 is Class D and Cambridge Audio CXA81 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. |
| Shelf space | depends | Cambridge Audio CXA81 takes up about 13% less shelf area (1595cm² against 1840cm²), and it is 53mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | evenly matched | Priced within a few per cent of each other. |
| Watts per dollar | A | NAD C 388 is the cheaper watt - about $10 per watt against $19. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A NAD C 388 B Cambridge Audio CXA81
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?
Cambridge Audio CXA81 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 CXA81 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 has the headroom, and headroom is what stops an amplifier hardening up on peaks. At desk distance or in a small room, 80 watts is already more than most people ever use, and the extra 70 watts would be headroom you pay for and never hear - we rate NAD C 388 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.