I’m not sure I follow what you mean by “alongside” your iFi streamer.
Your iFi streamer is currently a HQPlayer ‘endpoint’ (NAA).
The idea of testing an Intel based PC/laptop or RPi4 is also for NAA so it’s not working alongside iFi Streamer - instead running NAA image on PC/RPi4 features a newer kernel update that may help with your native DSD issues.
So both RPi4 NAA and iFi Zen will be streamers.
It was just a suggestion by Jussi to try, especially if you have an Intel PC/laptop around or spare RPi4 around. Not necessarily to buy anything new.
Just in case there was confusion why there was a suggestion to try an RPi4 or Intel PC with NAA image.
It’s not running HQPlayer with this suggestion. It’s just an endpoint (think of Roon endpoint as an example)
I’m assuming you don’t have any access to any kind of Intel based laptop? Or NUC for example?