any suggestions on what to replace Bluesound Node 2i with

Only one choice withinn your budget. The dCS network bridge.

Software clunky compared to Bluesound, but SQ heavenly.  Depth, detail, presence, musicality.   It is currently a legacy product as the manufacturer's stated objective with the NB was to create an upgrade path to current spec for all its other legacy products, which I believe is done now. 

Because legacy, you may be able to source at a discount.

@jjss49 - looking at your profile, I’m assuming you use the Morpheus for your primary dac. Just curious, is that night and day better than the dac in the hegel h160? Does the h160 have the most recent of hegel’s dac’s, do you know?

hegel’s h160 is 1.5, almost 2 generations old now (2015 roll-out)... current h190 improves mostly on the quality of the dac... even then, a top outboard dac in the $1500-2000 range will handily outperform the hegel h190 onboard dac if heard on a good system -- i often recommend the h160 to those looking for truly outstanding amplification at reasonable cost, but also suggest they don’t use the internal dac for serious listening

as for my own use of dacs, yes i use the morpheus more than most others (and the metrum jade before it) - it to me is middle of the road tonally, highly transparent, very pure timbre, suitably full bodied and rich sounding - it also has an excellent integral remote volume control, so i can go direct into power amps when i am carefully evaluating those (seems i do that a lot these days...)

if we treat the morpheus as the baseline, and at the midpoint of tonality (other dacs in this group include the ayre codex, jolida fx tube, auris d1d), from there, i can go to other dacs either for more air/more treble energy/more incisiveness (chord scaler/qutest/tt2, mf trivista, ps audio d-link...) or for more solidity/warmth/fullness of tone (audio mirror, mhdt, ava fet topp... )

Stop chasing ghosts. I went from a Lumin T2 to a node 2i, just for a comparison. I found ZERO difference. I saved myself a lot of money by selling the Lumin. I’ve been down the rabbit hole and back and 99% of the time I was hearing from my wallet and not from my ears. 

Thanks @jjss49 - very helpful!

I haven't read the entire thread, so forgive me if this has already been brought up.  You said this is for your home theater system.  If you're running your streamer through a home theater processor, it might not be up to the level of a better streamer.  Streamers don't all sound the same, unless you're playing it through a system that can't resolve the differences.  

I have heard the T2 at a dealer and thought it sounded excellent.  My personal journey involved starting out with the Node 2, then adding a couple of different DACs, and then finally replacing the Node 2 / DAC combination with a TEAC NT-505.  I'm pretty happy with that.  I believe it's been discontinued, so they can be found at a significant discount from their original price.