My own experience with ND5XS was that I used it bare for over a year but did upgrade interconnects a couple of times Naim Snaic to AR Sound Lunar to Naim Hiline each change improved on the last and then about six months ago I added a Chord 2Qute again quite an improvement. I used the ND5XS as a renderer until last month when I sold it and have replaced it with a Raspberry Pi I haven't fully fathomed streaming with the Pi but playing music via a usb stick offers absolutely no degradation in SQ than playing the same usb stick into the ND5XS/2Qute.
