Speaker Cable Suggestion

If you get good ICs, the next thing to further improve the sound is to get a good power cord for your cd player. That will further reduce the glare and metallic qualities. Try Audience powerChord. For a good pair of ICs and this power cord you will easily fit into $500.

It's interesting you mentioned power cords. I just ordered a signal magic power cord. Maybe not as good as the Audience you mentioned, but given the return policy and number of positive reviews, I thought it would not hurt to try it out. Reading articles/forums I know upgrading PCs is a touchy subject. I'm glad you had success with the upgraded PC. It gives me more confidence that I'm heading down the right path.

Good to see you going the interconnect route. I have found my CD -> Pre cable to be vital to the sound in my system. I have a Kimber Power cord on my tube pre and it cleaned up the background. As your system improves you will notice changes more because the sytem as a whole has more resolution. This is why the subject is so debated. A bad system may have no effect at all. A reference system may have dramatic effects.

One thing that would be free to try is if you have improved the speaker cables go back to your $40 monster interconnects. You may notice more of a difference with the better speaker cables in place. The power cord is a good idea as well. I have been wanting to try the Signal Cable PC too, so it will be interesting to see what you say. A power cord can work wonders on cheap gear with poor power supplies. On expensive gear it may do nothing because it has super power supplies and regulation built-in. Don't be afraid to experiment.

For bright system, the low cost Rega Quottro is very forgiving without sounding dull & muffled. The Audio Note AN-L is along the same line but more musical & transparent and has better bass - but double the price.

The AN-L is very suitable for lean & bright systems - fluid and with sufficient body.

Just an update...

I finally purchased the Musical Fidelity 3.5 CD Player, Acoustic Zen Matrix interconnect and soon to arrive, AZ Satori speaker cables. Roughly a two week period between purchases.

The harshness and electronic haze I discussed in my earlier posts has diminished greatly. In my opinion, the largest impact since my first post was a decent burn in period of the Musical Fidelity 3.5 Amp, which was new at the time, and the replacement of the NAD CD player. The MF CD player also needed a decent burn in period but at 100 hrs, the quality of sound got better. This was easy to do by simply letting the player run in repeat mode and just hear the comparison, day to day after I came home from work. The Matrix interconnect definetly changed the character of the sound for the better compared the monster cable that I was using.

I still have to incorporate the AZ speaker cables and will probably replace the power cords at some point, but I'm trying to do this a step at a time so I understand what each upgrade is adding and removing.

I want to thank everyone that provided suggestions.