Recommendation on Balanced Interconnect

Tara Labs Master Generation are fabulous interconnects. They sound sweet and smooth. 2 other interconnects I really like are, Harmonic Technology Pro Silway II's
and Sonoran PLATEAU Cactus interconnects. Here's Sonoran's site. www.starsound.biz

1. Make sure whatever your choice, make sure that the cable is a TRUE balanced design and not just a coax with XLR connectors. For exaMPLE, THE Cardas Golden Reference has a different implementation in XLR vs. RCA mode, as it should.
2. I would start with an Innersound balanced cable. Short money. Then, when your tastes become educated, you can upgrade to a higher priced cable. That's part of the fun!
3. You may not find an advantage running the SONY player in balanced mode. It implements its balanced connection rather poorly unless of course you have one of the modified units.
4. You might consider Cardas Golden Reference as an upgrade option. I would also run this in RCA mode with the Sony into the X0.2. I'd also look at the Empirical cable -sound engineering and great sound.

Salman, I compared the balanced outs to the single-ended outs. It's quite easy to do with the SCD-1, since there is one pair of XLR outs and two pair of RCA outs on the unit and they can all be sending a signal simultaneously.

With my pre, I am able to switch inputs in a 1/10th of a second. Thus providing a good A/B comparison.

At the very least, the XLR outs of the SCD-1 provides for greater and perhaps more life-like dynamic swings.

In any case, I like using the XLR outs much more.

-IMO

Stenho makes a great point about the SCD-1 - always good to listen for yourself! I have a similar reaction to my Marantz SA14 which theoretically is not a "pure" differential design in the analog outputs, I am told.