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 | Schiit Tyr F has more power - 200W against 150W 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 | Schiit Tyr F holds up better into a 4-ohm load: its output increases strongly to 350W, where the other barely increases. That matters with demanding speakers far more than the 8-ohm figure does. |
| Noise floor | B | Schiit Tyr F is the quieter design on paper - 120dB against 95dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | A | NAD C 388 has a DAC on board; the other needs an external one, which is another box, another power lead and another purchase. |
| Analogue inputs | evenly matched | The same number of line-level inputs (2). |
| Phono stage | depends | NAD C 388 has a built-in phono stage (MM) and Schiit Tyr F 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. |
| Headphones | depends | Only NAD C 388 has a headphone output. Worth something if you listen late, nothing if you never do. |
| Amplifier class | depends | NAD C 388 is Class D and Schiit Tyr F 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 | Schiit Tyr F takes up about 27% less shelf area (1342cm² against 1840cm²), and it is 93mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | A | NAD C 388 costs less - $1,499 against $1,699 at list. |
A NAD C 388 B Schiit Tyr F
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?
The usual trade-off: Schiit Tyr F measures better, NAD C 388 costs about 12% less. With most speakers in most rooms that gap is smaller in practice than it looks here. If your speakers are a difficult load - 4 ohms nominal, big woofers, or a sensitivity in the low 80s - Schiit Tyr F 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 388 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.