One is a streaming all-in-one and the other is an amplifier. Judge them on how many boxes you want and what you already own, not on the spec sheet alone.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | A | NAD M10 V3 has more power - 100W against 80W into 8 ohms. That is about 1dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Grip on hard loads | evenly matched | Both behave much the same into 4 ohms - output barely increases (100W and 80W). |
| Bass control | B | NAD C 368 has the higher damping factor (300 vs 190), which usually means a tighter grip on a woofer. Above about 100 the returns flatten out, so read this as a tendency rather than a ranking. |
| Noise floor | B | NAD C 368 is the quieter design on paper - 98dB against 90dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | A | Both decode on board, but only NAD M10 V3 handles MQA. |
| Streaming | A | Only NAD M10 V3 has AirPlay 2, Roon and BluOS. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Headphones | depends | Only NAD C 368 has a headphone output. Worth something if you listen late, nothing if you never do. |
| Shelf space | depends | NAD M10 V3 takes up about 67% less shelf area (606cm² against 1840cm²), and it is 145mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | B | NAD C 368 costs less - $1,199 against $2,499 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | NAD C 368 is the cheaper watt - about $15 per watt against $25. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A NAD M10 V3 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?
Neither runs away with it - they trade advantages. Let the "depends" rows and the speakers you already own settle it. Think about the whole system: the roughly $1,300 saved by taking the cheaper one would buy better speakers or a subwoofer, which does more for the sound than the difference between two competent amplifiers.
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.