Different price classes - Naim Nova PE costs roughly 1.7x what Primare I35 Prisma 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 - 150W against 150W into 8 ohms is under 1dB, which is not an audible difference in loudness. |
| Grip on hard loads | B | Primare I35 Prisma holds up better into a 4-ohm load: its output nearly doubles to 300W, where the other increases strongly. That matters with demanding speakers far more than the 8-ohm figure does. |
| Built-in DAC | B | Both decode on board. Primare I35 Prisma goes higher - 768kHz against 384kHz. Very few recordings exist above 192kHz, so treat this as headroom, not as sound quality. |
| Streaming | evenly matched | The same streaming platforms and services on both. |
| Analogue inputs | B | Primare I35 Prisma takes more analogue sources - 5 against 2. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Headphones | depends | Only Naim Nova PE has a headphone output. Worth something if you listen late, nothing if you never do. |
| Shelf space | depends | Naim Nova PE takes up about 42% less shelf area (1145cm² against 1970cm²), and it is 191mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | B | Primare I35 Prisma costs less - $5,795 against $9,999 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | Primare I35 Prisma is the cheaper watt - about $39 per watt against $67. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A Naim Nova PE B Primare I35 Prisma
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?
Primare I35 Prisma is the easier recommendation: it leads on most of the measured areas and costs less. Take Naim Nova PE if one of the "depends" rows above describes your system. If your speakers are a difficult load - 4 ohms nominal, big woofers, or a sensitivity in the low 80s - Primare I35 Prisma is the safer partner, because how an amplifier behaves when the impedance drops matters more than its 8-ohm rating. Think about the whole system: the roughly $4,204 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.