Different price classes - NAD C 399 costs roughly 1.7x what Schiit Tyr F 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 - 200W against 180W into 8 ohms is under 1dB, which is not an audible difference in loudness. |
| Grip on hard loads | A | Schiit Tyr F holds up better into a 4-ohm load: its output increases strongly to 350W, where the other barely increases. That matters with demanding speakers far more than the 8-ohm figure does. |
| Noise floor | A | Schiit Tyr F is the quieter design on paper - 120dB against 95dB. Audible mainly with sensitive speakers in a quiet room. |
| Built-in DAC | B | NAD C 399 has a DAC on board; the other needs an external one, which is another box, another power lead and another purchase. |
| Analogue inputs | evenly matched | The same number of line-level inputs (2). |
| Phono stage | depends | NAD C 399 has a built-in phono stage (MM) and Schiit Tyr F 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. |
| Use with a TV | depends | Only NAD C 399 has HDMI eARC, so the television can drive it directly and one remote controls the volume. If the system is for music only, this changes nothing. |
| Headphones | depends | Only NAD C 399 has a headphone output. Worth something if you listen late, nothing if you never do. |
| Amplifier class | depends | Schiit Tyr F is Class A/B and NAD C 399 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. |
| Shelf space | depends | Schiit Tyr F takes up about 26% less shelf area (1342cm² against 1818cm²), and it is 88mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | A | Schiit Tyr F costs less - $1,699 against $2,899 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | A | Schiit Tyr F is the cheaper watt - about $8 per watt against $16. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A Schiit Tyr F B NAD C 399
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?
Schiit Tyr F is the easier recommendation: it leads on most of the measured areas and costs less. Take NAD C 399 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 - Schiit Tyr F is the safer partner, because how an amplifier behaves when the impedance drops matters more than its 8-ohm rating. If you play records, NAD C 399 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.