No single best amplifier here. What decides it is what you have to drive, what you need to plug in, and how much of the system you want in one box.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | evenly matched | Effectively the same output - 125W against 130W into 8 ohms is under 1dB, which is not an audible difference in loudness. |
| Grip on hard loads | evenly matched | Both behave much the same into 4 ohms - output barely increases (125W and 130W). |
| Noise floor | A | Parasound NewClassic 200 Integrated is the quieter design on paper - 100dB against 95dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | B | Both decode on board. NAD C 389 goes higher - 384kHz against 192kHz. Very few recordings exist above 192kHz, so treat this as headroom, not as sound quality. |
| Analogue inputs | A | Parasound NewClassic 200 Integrated takes more analogue sources - 4 against 3. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Price | A | Parasound NewClassic 200 Integrated costs less - $1,399 against $1,499 at list. |
A Parasound NewClassic 200 Integrated B NAD C 389
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?
Parasound NewClassic 200 Integrated has the edge on paper, though not by much. The rows marked "depends" are more likely to decide this than the score is.
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.