These are not the same size of amplifier: OSD Nero Stream XD has roughly 3x the power of Schiit Gjallarhorn F. That is about 4.8dB, 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 | B | OSD Nero Stream XD has more power - 30W against 10W into 8 ohms. That is about 4.8dB, so it plays usefully louder before it runs out and has more in hand on peaks. |
| Grip on hard loads | B | OSD Nero Stream XD holds up better into a 4-ohm load: its output increases strongly to 50W, where the other increases strongly. That matters with demanding speakers far more than the 8-ohm figure does. |
| Noise floor | A | Schiit Gjallarhorn F is the quieter design on paper - 117dB against 95dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | B | OSD Nero Stream XD has a DAC on board; the other needs an external one, which is another box, another power lead and another purchase. |
| Analogue inputs | A | Schiit Gjallarhorn F takes more analogue sources - 2 against 1. |
| Headphones | depends | Only OSD Nero Stream XD has a headphone output. Worth something if you listen late, nothing if you never do. |
| Amplifier class | depends | Schiit Gjallarhorn F is Class A/B and OSD Nero Stream XD is Class D. Class A/B runs warm and is the long-established mainstream choice; Class D runs cool and draws almost nothing at idle. Modern examples of both measure well - judge by the rest of the page. |
| Price | B | OSD Nero Stream XD costs less - $240 against $299 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | OSD Nero Stream XD is the cheaper watt - about $8 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 Schiit Gjallarhorn F B OSD Nero Stream XD
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?
OSD Nero Stream XD is the easier recommendation: it leads on most of the measured areas and costs less. Take Schiit Gjallarhorn F 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 - OSD Nero Stream XD 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 - OSD Nero Stream XD has the headroom, and headroom is what stops an amplifier hardening up on peaks. At desk distance or in a small room, 10 watts is already more than most people ever use, and the extra 20 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.