Different price classes - NAD Masters Series M23 V2 costs roughly 1.6x what NAD C298 does. Expect it to lead on paper; the question is whether you will hear the difference through the speakers you own.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | evenly matched | Effectively the same output - 200W against 185W into 8 ohms is under 1dB, which is not an audible difference in loudness. |
| Analogue inputs | evenly matched | The same number of line-level inputs (2). |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Price | B | NAD C298 costs less - $3,099 against $4,999 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | NAD C298 is the cheaper watt - about $17 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 Masters Series M23 V2 B NAD C298
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 C298 has the edge on paper, though not by much. The rows marked "depends" are more likely to decide this than the score is. Think about the whole system: the roughly $1,900 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.