These are not the same size of amplifier: NAD Masters Series M33 V2 has roughly 5x the power of NAD C 328. That is about 7dB, so it is a question of room size and how hard your speakers are to drive, not of one being the better amplifier.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | A | NAD Masters Series M33 V2 has more power - 200W against 40W into 8 ohms. That is about 7dB - a different class of amplifier rather than a bigger version of the same one, and far more than most rooms will ever ask for. |
| Grip on hard loads | A | NAD Masters Series M33 V2 holds up better into a 4-ohm load: its output nearly doubles to 380W, where the other barely increases. That matters with demanding speakers far more than the 8-ohm figure does. |
| Noise floor | A | NAD Masters Series M33 V2 is the quieter design on paper - 120dB against 100dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | A | Both decode on board. NAD Masters Series M33 V2 goes higher - 384kHz against 192kHz. Very few recordings exist above 192kHz, so treat this as headroom, not as sound quality. |
| Streaming | A | Only NAD Masters Series M33 V2 has AirPlay 2, Roon and BluOS. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Shelf space | depends | NAD C 328 takes up about 31% less shelf area (1349cm² against 1947cm²), and it is 138mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | B | NAD C 328 costs less - $699 against $7,399 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | NAD C 328 is the cheaper watt - about $17 per watt against $37. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A NAD Masters Series M33 V2 B NAD C 328
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 Masters Series M33 V2 measures better, NAD C 328 costs about 91% 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 - NAD Masters Series M33 V2 is the safer partner, because how an amplifier behaves when the impedance drops matters more than its 8-ohm rating. 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 Masters Series M33 V2 has the headroom, and headroom is what stops an amplifier hardening up on peaks. At desk distance or in a small room, 40 watts is already more than most people ever use, and the extra 160 watts would be headroom you pay for and never hear.
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.