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 |
|---|
| Power | A | Yamaha R-N1000A has more power - 100W against 70W into 8 ohms. That is about 1.5dB, which is a small step in loudness but real headroom on peaks. |
| Built-in DAC | A | Both decode on board, but only Yamaha R-N1000A handles DSD. |
| Streaming | evenly matched | Only Marantz Model 40n has HEOS. Neither list is longer in a way that matters - check the one service you actually pay for. |
| Analogue inputs | evenly matched | The same number of line-level inputs (3). |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Shelf space | depends | Yamaha R-N1000A takes up about 14% less shelf area (1830cm² against 2126cm²), and it is 60mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
| Price | A | Yamaha R-N1000A costs less - $2,300 against $2,499 at list. |
| Watts per dollar | A | Yamaha R-N1000A is the cheaper watt - about $23 per watt against $36. A blunt measure, and it says nothing about how either sounds, but it is the honest one for raw output. |
A Yamaha R-N1000A B Marantz Model 40n
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-N1000A 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.