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 Wotan has more power - 200W against 130W into 8 ohms. That is about 1.9dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Room size | depends | We rate NAD C 389 the better fit for desk or near-field listening, a small room and a mid-size room, and Schiit Wotan for a very large room. Match the amplifier to the room you actually have, not the one you want. |
| Grip on hard loads | B | Schiit Wotan holds up better into a 4-ohm load: its output nearly doubles to 400W, where the other barely increases. That matters with demanding speakers far more than the 8-ohm figure does. |
| Noise floor | B | Schiit Wotan is the quieter design on paper - 124dB against 95dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | A | NAD C 389 has a DAC on board; the other needs an external one, which is another box, another power lead and another purchase. |
| Analogue inputs | A | NAD C 389 takes more analogue sources - 3 against 2. |
| Phono stage | depends | NAD C 389 has a built-in phono stage (MM) and Schiit Wotan 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. |
| Use with a TV | depends | Only NAD C 389 has HDMI eARC, so the television can drive it directly and one remote controls the volume. If the system is for music only, this changes nothing. |
| Headphones | depends | Only NAD C 389 has a headphone output. Worth something if you listen late, nothing if you never do. |
| Amplifier class | depends | NAD C 389 is Class D and Schiit Wotan 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 Wotan takes up about 21% less shelf area (1342cm² against 1705cm²), and it is 62mm 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 | B | Schiit Wotan is the cheaper watt - about $10 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 Schiit Wotan
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?
Schiit Wotan 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 - Schiit Wotan 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 389 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.