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

@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. 

I agree...  RCA vs. RCA and XLR vs. XLR would be a better apples to apples but Expressivo (RCA) and Virtuoso (XLR) are not inexpensive cables and I just don't have spares to make the comparison true apples to apples.  I think the difference in conductors make cables sound different to a greater extent than the connection configuration does, but that's just my take on it having run the same cables in both RCA and XLR configuration as a test.

OP here....   Benchmark DAC 3 b has been delivered.  Connected and immediately determined the internal jumpers at -10 db was not enough and opened it up and moved the jumpers to -20 db...  which makes the output a correct match for my Audio Research preamp.  Initial impressions after 30 minutes of listening to a brand new DAC with brand new Belden 1694A digital cables and a balanced pair of Virtuoso interconnects which haven't been run enough in the last 6 months to keep them broken in ......   low octaves for bass fiddle, piano, drums and so forth jump out with previously unheard detail and intensity.  Rhythm and drive of the system, which it already had in spades, may be even more present and makes you want to get up and dance in the room.  Air and space around individual instruments is better than either source was before, as is the silence at the back of it all.  Sound stage as wide as before, which was already beyond the walls.  Depth, already was deep so I need more time to tell about any changes here.  Observations apply to both the Cambridge streaming for a couple of hours  and the Sony XA 5400 ES for the one disk played so far. The DAC 3 b is small, smaller than I expected and takes very little shelf space.  More after getting a couple hundred hours on it as I'm going to be running it 24/7 now.