These are not the same size of amplifier: Yamaha R-S202 has roughly 10x the power of Schiit Gjallarhorn F. That is about 10dB, 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 | Yamaha R-S202 has more power - 100W against 10W into 8 ohms. That is about 10dB - a different class of amplifier rather than a bigger version of the same one, and far more than most rooms will ever ask for. |
| Analogue inputs | B | Yamaha R-S202 takes more analogue sources - 4 against 2. |
| Shelf space | depends | Schiit Gjallarhorn F takes up about 77% less shelf area (348cm² against 1506cm²), and it is 194mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | B | Yamaha R-S202 costs less - $250 against $299 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | B | Yamaha R-S202 is the cheaper watt - about $3 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 Yamaha R-S202
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?
Yamaha R-S202 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. 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 - Yamaha R-S202 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 90 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.