Setting up a streamer for a frien

If you can feed the Node into the Esoteric it will sound pretty decent.  The most important determinant of of streaming sound is the DAC.  Transports matter, and a better transport will sound better (the rest of the friends system sounds like it is good enough to resolve smallish differences in components).
    As has been stated many times the Bluesound stuff occupies a certain sweet spot.  It is a great entry level piece, particularly if someone isn’t too certain that they are going to forgo a large CD collection in favor of streaming, or they just want to dip their toe in.  And it’s good enough, particularly if paired with a better DAC, to be an endpoint, and it is economical.  Certainly it can be bested, but its compatibility with every streaming service out there and it’s relatively good OS make it very attractive.

  A few more thoughts, RVW:
Did you recommend the Cambridge that we both own?  It isn’t much over the stated budget.  Also, where are the files to be stored?  Or is this listening only for streaming services and not going to include the present CD collection?

If the budget is over 1K I’d get the Cambridge because it adds Chromecast and AirPlay, and it has a better DAC than my older Node2.  The present Node2 has a better DAC and may even use the same Chip as the Cambridge, but the CA is a larger component and probably has a better power supply and overall implementation.
However, it’s nice to be able to just stream from the phone or tablet in something better sounding than Bluetooth.