Best used 500 1m XLR interconnects

A lesser known brand to consider is Bearlabs. They retail at less than $500 new and I chose them for MY system over more expensive silver Siltechs and SPM. Good luck!

Been in your position and the best I found with my set up is the AudioQuest Anaconda. I was using XLO reference Type 2 and was thrilled until I auditioned the AQ. No brightness, detail and no real character of it's own. Kinda spooky when you hear it. I picked up a .6 meter for $325.00 but you can find 1 meter pairs for under $500.00. Good luck and Cheers...

KiD

My general advice to you is to get together enough cash to buy two or three sets of i/c's used. Compare them all and sell what you don't want. Different cables in general do respond better/worse in different systems.

I like spm(my favorite - very transparent and works with everything),kimber 1120(transparent, nice soft , refined presentation), az silver ref (similar to a pro-silway).
I think the az silver ref is overpriced compared to pro-silway II, but quite a few people feel otherwise.

For speaker cables, I feel that the az satori is the cabling steal of the century. It's really hard to justify buying much more expensive cables when these just sound great.

I don't think you can generalize and say silver cables are always brighter than copper, but I will say that every time I compared a copper and silver cable from the same manufacturer the silver cable was more detailed with slightly tighter bass.

I use the AZ Silver Ref from DAC to pre and Matrix Ref from pre to amp--the silver yields more detail from the front end while the Matrix allows the mids to flourish. When I have more detailed speakers(usually with metal tweets) in my system I sometimes swap the Silver Ref with another pair of Matrix Refs and it works better--just shows system matching is key. I highly recommend the AZ interconnects, and if you're trying to surface more detail out of your system try the Silver, and if you're already getting enough detail but would like more life from the mids I'd say go with the Matrix. I agree with John above--especially with cables there are no shortcuts and you're gonna have to experiment a bit to find the right combo for your tastes and system. It's always amazing to me how two people can have diametrically opposed opinions about the sound of the same cable, and they're probably both right--scary. Best of luck.

Tim

Quattro fils are dang good (generally considered to be a step up from the SPM). If you can use a .55 pair, there are some cooked ones in the classifieds for $550. Don't know what associated equipment you have, but suspect that the fils would be one of the last things to change in your system.