External DAC for Cambridge CXN (V2) and Sony XA 5400 ES

Whoops, sorry for repeating the above suggestion...

Well..  I've decided (I think) to order the Benchmark DAC 3b this coming week from Benchmark.First shootout will be the Benchmark fed by the Cambridge digitally to my AR preamp via balanced interconnects against the Cambridge on it's analogue cables to my pre.
If that is successful the second shootout will be the Sony XA 5400 ES feeding the Benchmark digitally vs. the Sony on RCA analogue and on the reverse, the Benchmark on RCA vs. the Sony on balanced.
Cables will be Digital Belden 1694A with Canare jacks as that's what Benchmark recommends and sells.  I also have some Digital Straightwire Silver Streak II on the way in for testing.  Balanced cables are Straightwire Virtuoso (one of their level 4 reference cables) and a Straightwire Expressivo level 3 high end audio RCA cable.  I have some others I could try but the Straightwire cables (including Maestro) outperformed everything else I ever tried so that is what it is.  Power cord will be an 3m Audioquest.
I did have some concerns about SACD playback but after considering that situation I listen mostly now via streaming, and while I have a nice 700+ disc collection just don't play CDs very often,  and SACDs perhaps a couple a year now.  Throwing another $1800 at this to cover SACD playback from the Sony HDMI outputs (to a Bryston D/A)  just doesn't make sense to me.  I would expect the next step, if I take it would be to re-digitize by re-recording all my disks in FLAC or WAV on something like a Bluenode Vault 2i.  The downside to that is they say it runs about 20 minutes a CD and WTF, I'm 73 years old this month.  I'm not looking for nearly year long projects.

@midareff1 Regarding re-digitizing, I put my entire collection on a hard drive years ago using bit prefect eac rips. I find that I usually prefer Tidal's version to my own, so probably not much need to rip disks that are also streamable.

That's actually an excellent point.  For the $1299 cost of a Blue Node Vault 2i, and a quality power cord and cable I could probably pay monthly  for Tidal for fifteen years or more.....    since I'll be 73 this month I guess it's time to try Tidal and forget any idea of re-digitizing.  Thanks again, it was a concept I was missing.. 

First shootout will be the Benchmark fed by the Cambridge digitally to my AR preamp via balanced interconnects against the Cambridge on it's analogue cables to my pre.

I'll be interested to hear your findings as I've done a similar test but using RCA on both. 
Don't forget to level match. XLR/balanced outputs normally have a higher output voltage, giving it a general advantage. 
If you can test both with RCA or both with XLR you'll have a more apples to apples comparison.