Newbie balanced cable help

try Acoustic Zen Silver Ref MkII from CD3 to Ref and then Acoustic Zen Matrix Ref MkII from Ref to amp. Acoustic Zen Hologram II is a VERY nice speaker cable. All these are priced pretty good on the used market and if you don't like what you hear(I kind of doubt it) you can always sell without loosing money. As far as the power cord for CD3, I read a review of this player where reviewer had to go up to Shunyata Anaconda VX to get improvement over stock cord, so it's up to you to spend this kind of dough on PC but I wouldn't do it. In the very same review it's mentioned that CD3 sounds better balanced, so you're ona right path I think.

Lrdmax, catch your breath and enjoy your ARC stuff. ARC is one of the best. Should be fun!!!! Anyway how much were you going to spend on cables now?

OK. I'm curious now how good that $30 balanced cable from bluejeanscables.com could be.

Just thought you'd be interested. I compared Audience AU24 XLR and RCA interconnects on my CD3 MkII. XLR sounds definitely better. Way better as a matter of fact. However, when I took out the single-ended AU24 and replaced it with my single-ended AZ Silver Ref MkII, it bridged the gap. Now I am wondering what the XLR version of Silver Ref MkII will bring. Will it be an improvement over the RCA Silver Ref as the AU24 XLR was over AU24 RCA? Unfortunately I don't have Silver Ref MkII in XLR, so I can't compare.

The ICs used for the above comparsion were not new so break-in did not play any role. It was a first time I used AU24 interconnects and preferred the Silver Ref MkII over both the XLR and RCA AU24. Livelier sound, bigger stage, more resolution without brightness. Just my taste I guess, although the AU24 is a very good IC.

I'll be comparing some power cords on the CD3. While my pre-amp has Shunyata Diamondback on it and amp has Audience powerChord, I will be comparing following power cords on the CD3:
ARC stock cord
Audience
Shunyata Dimondback
AZ Tsunami Plus
Cardas Golden Power
Nirvana PC Plus
Purist Audio Musaeus

Two Shunyata Hydra2 units(1 for digital another for amp and pre) provide AC line conditioning.
We'll see what happens.

Tripper, I just got Silver Ref MkII in XLR and these are a huge improvement over AU24 XLRs. I was shocked.

Thanks for the offer to let me try the BJCs in my system, but right now my amp is single ended. I will most likely be getting it upgraded so it'll have balanced inputs. Then I may take advantage of your offer. I appreciate it though. Thanks.