Different price classes - Denon PMA-1700NE costs roughly 5.2x what OSD Nero Stream XD2 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 - 60W against 70W into 8 ohms is under 1dB, which is not an audible difference in loudness. |
| Room size | depends | We rate OSD Nero Stream XD2 the better fit for desk or near-field listening and a small room, and Denon PMA-1700NE for a mid-size room, a large room and a very large room. Match the amplifier to the room you actually have, not the one you want. |
| Grip on hard loads | evenly matched | Both behave much the same into 4 ohms - output nearly doubles (120W and 140W). |
| Noise floor | B | Denon PMA-1700NE is the quieter design on paper - 107dB against 95dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | B | Both decode on board. Denon PMA-1700NE goes higher - 384kHz against 192kHz. Very few recordings exist above 192kHz, so treat this as headroom, not as sound quality. |
| Analogue inputs | B | Denon PMA-1700NE takes more analogue sources - 3 against 1. |
| Phono stage | depends | Denon PMA-1700NE has a built-in phono stage (MM,MC) and OSD Nero Stream XD2 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. |
| Room to grow | A | Only OSD Nero Stream XD2 offers preamp outputs - which decides whether you can add a subwoofer or a power amplifier later without replacing the box. |
| Amplifier class | depends | OSD Nero Stream XD2 is Class D and Denon PMA-1700NE 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 | OSD Nero Stream XD2 takes up about 65% less shelf area (688cm² against 1949cm²), and it is 167mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | A | OSD Nero Stream XD2 costs less - $400 against $2,099 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | A | OSD Nero Stream XD2 is the cheaper watt - about $7 per watt against $30. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A OSD Nero Stream XD2 B Denon PMA-1700NE
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?
Denon PMA-1700NE is ahead, but on only 1 of the measured areas, and it costs about 5.2x the price. That is a lot of money for a narrow margin - OSD Nero Stream XD2 is the sensible buy unless a specific feature above decides it for you. If you play records, Denon PMA-1700NE saves you buying a phono stage; if you do not, ignore that row entirely. Think about the whole system: the roughly $1,699 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.