With even basic soldering skills, some patience, and a bit of heatshrink, you can make a very nice sounding pair of balanced IC's in your price range by purchasing high quality bulk IC cable from Furutech, Neotech, VH Audio's own Symmetry cable, and others, then installing XLR connectors from Furutech, Neutrik, or others. For example, from Partsconnexion, 2M of u-P2.1 IC cable is $82 and four of the Furutech FP-701/702 connectors would be $50. For a total cost of $132 you would have PCOCC wire that has undergone Furutech's magnetic and cryogenic Alpha treatment and some nice connectors. You could upgrade the same cable with some of the nicest connectors out there FP-601/602 for a total cable cost of about $332, which could get down to your (under $300) price range if you wait for one of their 15-20% off sales (usually in Oct, Nov and Dec).
Best budget $300 Balanced IC Recommendation
I have a Cambridge Azure 840C with both Balanced and SE outputs. I have been using Kimber KS1021's with Black Pearl silver and copper stranding. Anyway, I wanted to try the balanced connect and ordered a pro cable for about $20. I could not believe the results! The pro XLR cable sounded almost as good as the Kimber and it's not even broken in! This tells me balanced is the way to go. I'll probably sell the Kimber's to finance the purchase or trade for a balanced IC. Looking for some help and suggestions - thanks!