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 | A | NAD C 389 has more power - 130W against 80W into 8 ohms. That is about 2.1dB, so it plays usefully louder before it runs out and has more in hand on peaks. |
| Room size | depends | We rate NAD C 389 the better fit for a large room and a very large room, and NAD C 368 for a small 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 (130W and 80W). |
| Noise floor | B | NAD C 368 is the quieter design on paper - 98dB against 95dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | evenly matched | Both have a DAC on board with much the same capability. |
| Analogue inputs | A | NAD C 389 takes more analogue sources - 3 against 2. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Price | B | NAD C 368 costs less - $1,199 against $1,499 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | A | NAD C 389 is the cheaper watt - about $12 per watt against $15. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A NAD C 389 B NAD C 368
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: NAD C 389 measures better, NAD C 368 costs about 20% less. With most speakers in most rooms that gap is smaller in practice than it looks here. 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 389 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 50 watts would be headroom you pay for and never hear - we rate NAD C 389 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.