Siblings in NAD's Classic range, so they share a design and a house sound. It comes down to power, features and price.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | evenly matched | Effectively the same output - 150W against 130W into 8 ohms is under 1dB, which is not an audible difference in loudness. |
| Room size | depends | We rate NAD C 388 the better fit for a very large room, and NAD C 389 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 | evenly matched | Both behave much the same into 4 ohms - output barely increases (150W and 130W). |
| Noise floor | evenly matched | Much the same signal-to-noise ratio (95dB vs 95dB). |
| Built-in DAC | evenly matched | Both have a DAC on board with much the same capability. |
| Analogue inputs | B | NAD C 389 takes more analogue sources - 3 against 2. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Price | evenly matched | Priced within a few per cent of each other. |
A NAD C 388 B NAD C 389
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 389 has the edge on paper, though not by much. The rows marked "depends" are more likely to decide this than the score is.
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.