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 |
|---|
| Noise floor | B | Peachtree Carina is the quieter design on paper - 116dB against 104dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | B | Both decode on board, but only Peachtree Carina handles DSD and MQA. |
| Streaming | A | Only Onkyo Icon P-80 has AirPlay 2, Chromecast and Roon. |
| Phono stage | depends | Onkyo Icon P-80 has a built-in phono stage (MM/MC) and Peachtree Carina 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 | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Shelf space | depends | Peachtree Carina takes up about 17% less shelf area (1289cm² against 1544cm²). |
| Price | evenly matched | Priced within a few per cent of each other. |
A Onkyo Icon P-80 B Peachtree Carina
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?
Peachtree Carina has the edge on paper, though not by much. The rows marked "depends" are more likely to decide this than the score is. If you play records, Onkyo Icon P-80 saves you buying a phono stage; if you do not, ignore that row entirely.
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.