Reasonable high end interconnects: without breaking the bank

The first ICs I bought that were clearly much better sounding than good cables were the Darwin Silver cables that were their original ones. These beat Morrow MA-3 and MA-4 ICs, along with Crimson, Audioquest, Magnan,  They would be about $295 new or about $150-175 used. New ones at this time I would recommend would be the Acoustic BBQ from Grannyring on Audiogon. His best are the Schroeder Method double ICs and cost $295 new.  His regular and also good sounding ICs are $179 for a 1 mtr. pair.  The doubles are much better sounding in all ways than the regular.  I've done the double method with Teo GC II ICs and with Teo GC's and JW Reference ICs and the result of using double ICs to one connection is way better than doubling the cost of a single IC in the same family of ICs.  Bill Dion's AB ICs save money by not needing extra connectors and just doubling up the wires going to the RCAs.  Bill's ICs have a very organic, real sound to them when I heard them in his system.  I have not heard them in my system, however.  The Teo's were heard in my system with a couple of my friends prior to buying them and made an incredible difference.  I bought their pairs right then.  If I were you, I'd contact Bill of Acoustic BBQ and see what he can do for you.  He makes them at his house and charges a VERY fair price for them.

Bob  

Elizabeth nailed it. I use Anticables in my system. Very happy with the sound quality of their the speaker wire and ICs. My source is a LUMIN D1 using Tidal HiFi decoding MQA files. Power is from my Krell integrated amp (class A) thru Magnapans (1.7is). The anticables helped with the high end clarity and bass is tight. Buy what you can afford - we have too much choice in this hobby. Your ‘ear’ is the final judge.

I like tempo electric pure silver. Look it up. 

I'm wondering if any of these recommendations would change if it was clear that the OP was going to use balanced (XLR) cables or was going to have a long run from pre-amp to amps.  I seem to remember that Elizabeth found the Cardas Parsec excellent at short lengths but not so at longer lengths (hence her purchase of the much more expensive Kimber cables).  Anyway, that's what I need: XLR cables at 5 or 6 meters to get from my stack of equipment to my mono-blocks, next to the speakers.  Using Morrow MA 4 right now, which isn't terrible, but I wonder if I can do better without going over $1000.

@tcatch


It might make a difference but since the original poster his/her amplifier is completely single ended, the xlr question is kindof moot in this case. If you want advice, start a thread, list your equipment and sit back and relax. Someone or several someones will likely have some suggestions.