Best budget $300 Balanced IC Recommendation

Installed the Mogamis today. Without any break in time they sounded great, much more base and crisp micro details. The Mogamis went head to head (for a cost of $70 a pair) against my significantly more expensive single ended Kimber KS 1021's. I'm not sure yet, but the Kimbers may take a back seat to the Mogamis on first listen and find a new home hooked up to my headphone amp. I believe the IC world is a racket. I also believe there are some outstanding performers out there that don't cost $$$$.

I've been burning in the Mogami's and they continue to improve. I'm not sure their the best sounding cables in my system, but my best set of cables cost me a kilobuck and I can only say they sound different, maybe a bit less aggressive than the Mogami's, but their single ended vs. balanced, I think i need to get used to the balanced sound. I actually got my two teenage boys to an A/B comparison for me as I did not want to be biased and they chose the Mogami's over a pair of Kimber single ended KS1021's. The Kimbers are very rsolving and laid back where the Mogami's have more excitement.

I am currently breaking-in while thoroughly enjoying a pair of Patrick Cullen's "Cullen Custom XLR interconnects".
They sound remarkably good between my W4S DAC-2 and W4S ST-500 power amp. The build quality and appearance are also very good, not only the sound.
At $70 + $9 shipping and with 30 days return policy, how could one go wrong?
You don't like how they sound in your system, return them.
You'll only be short round trip shipping for the audition, a max of $18, albeit the cables fit pretty well inside priority mail "if it fits it ships" boxes of around $5. So it will be $14 for a 30 days in home audition.
By all means, try them. You'll be pleasantly surprised.

I can recommend the Soundsilver brand sold here on Audiogon. Stewart is an honest gentleman and great to work with. His cables are extremely reasonably priced and come with a money-back. Pure silver. Sounded great in my system.

I will second the Pure Note Alluvion. It is exactly at the upper limit you refer (at least for now). I recently bought the balanced version to use between my W4S DAC2 and W4S ST-500. Still burning them (currently I am at about 150 hrs) but these are remarkably smooth yet have such an astonishing amount of internal detail. Look for comments at other forums too. The music beatifully floats between my Martin Logans with exceptional soundstage and absolutely no "silverish" sound or glare. At least in my setup you can nearly feel the limits of the recording room. My other balanced ic's are a Tara Labs Master Gen2 and a DH BL-1. For comparison the Tara (still use it in my Theta gear) is no slouch. It is smooth and very musical but not that resolving, the DH is also a very good cable to startup and might fit well in your system, but they didnt seem to have the inner resolution and smoothness of the Pure Note (of course they are made of different materials and at different price). Alluvion is highly recommended even if they were $600.