Addenum: I am 2 Meter Nordost Red Dawn speaker cables, and a 2 meter interconnect between the preamp and the monoblocks. The CD to preamp is an old Esoteric Audio cable that I bought new for $70 ten years ago. The sound is excellent as it is. The Nordost cabling improved my system noticeably.
Do you need to use ALL balanced cables?
I have: XA7ES CD Player: w/balanced & unbalanced outputs GFP-750 Preamp: "" SF SFM-160 Amps: unbalanced only (feeding Virgos) I have decided I like the sound of the passive preamp verses the cd player's variable analog outputs. I am currently using unbalanced interconnects between the CD Player and the Preamp. Will I see improvement if I spring for a set of balanced cables to connect the Cd and preamp?