Please help with interconnects

Hdm has made a good point about the added benefits of both cryogenic treatment and also the burning in process.
This is included free of charge before you take delivery of products from realitycables.com
And, the new IC retail price is right at your $150 per pair request point.
Although the Alpha-Core Goertz MI-2 is great stuff, in two systems where I compared it (more precisely, its big brother MI-3) to the Reality, the greater detail and three dimensionality award went to Reality.
In the micro-price sweepstakes, my money (or, rather lack of it) goes to Auricle Audio Design whose auction prices are still a gift. The unique Encore KA design is very light and flexible if you have really tight spaces between your components. Sold direct by Audiogon member Joemazzaglia
who even goes to the trouble of hand-crafting his own unique RCA jacks terminating the IC's.
There are excellent choices among all the recommendations you have received, so you can take the plunge with any of a number of high value products. My bias is to stay within the same family of wiring between components so that any great performance is not lost due to a weak link.

Fewer connections and fewer cables is a highly desirable goal. Doing anything you can to improve the source is the winning strategy. So on both counts you are on the right track.

You can currently get a wide range of excellent products used on Agon for your budget. They key to getting good value is to set up your system up with the shorter common lengths which everyone buys. As a rule of thumb you should be able to get any product for half of MSRP.

SDCampbell has given you an excellent list of places to start. The big advantage to buying these name brands is that everyone starts with them so there is a ready resale market if and when you choose to upgrade. Also the pricing tends to be competitive since there is a fair amount of product on the market at any given time - with the exception of the Siltech. In this perennial classics category you should also consider the Harmonic Technology Truthlink which is a nice warm cable.

I agree with Hdm that the plugs are critical - currently I am an Eichman fan - Here are two manufacturers that use them you might want to add to the list. First is VH Audio - the Pulsars are $170 for a 1m pair new.

Except for the TQ2 everything else listed so far is copper. Silver can be great - its all about execution. The common wisdom is that it will be brighter and can be tizzy (shrill, annoying, too much emphasis on the high end like cymbals). Others think that silver is best suited to tubes and that copper is best suited to solid state. I have been very happy with silver, as well as silver over copper and I have been less then impressed... As we say, YMMV - your mileage may vary.

Though less well known then VH or any of the others, I am very pleased with the RS Audio silver cables - especially for the price. Their base cable is $99 new for a 1m pair (www.rscables.com) and has Eichmanns, and their better cable, the Illumé is $149. They sometimes run auctions on AGon which is not a bad way to get a nice cable at a reasonable price - another brand that does this is Black Mountain Cable (BMC) which also delivers some nice product with Eichmans.

With RS Audio and BMC you need to take advantage of the home trial and send them back if you don't like them since they don't have a very strong resale market.

I will certainly second the recommendation for the Goertz MI2 assuming the big floppy cable works in your installation environment. It is a wonderful cable, just hard to do much with and very difficult to keep off the floor. I had a bi-wire pair and they are just wonderfully musical, nice detail, great air and neutral.

Though you will not find it used, I would not hesitate to purchase the Balanced Power Technologies SC-9L speaker cables - and any of their power products - I am a huge fan.

Finally - now that you have embarked on this slippery slope... you have not talked about power cables =) One really nice low cost piece is the Harmonic Tech AC11. I would get one of the entry level BPT boxes to plug everything into - will make a much bigger difference then you might expect.

I'll second the Auricle Audio ICs and Alpha Core speaker cables. I have heard the Audio Auricle Signature and Encore KA and find them to be very good at their price point. If you like transparency and detail these are excellent choices in your budget. They worked nicely between my DAC and preamp.

I have had the Alpha Core MI-2 cables for over a year now and they are a great bargain. I also use their jumber cables in place of the brass ones that came with my speakers. Excellent results from this cable.

Do yourself a favor and check out the factory direct products from Audio Art;especially there IC-3 interconnect.They had ads here on Audiogon but I do not know if they are still active ads.Believe me you will not be disappointed!!

I like the Transparent Cables. I have owned many different types of cables. I have Super bi cables and Reference IC, Reference Digital. Very happy. Yes over priced, butt huge upgrade in detail of music.