I have had experience with the following cords in my budget system: original MIT Z-cord, XLO, BMI Edge cords, LAT International, Blue Circle BC 62 and Cardas Golden. It depends on what you mean by cheap, but I figure up to $200 is cheap. Buy used and if you don't like it, you can re-sell without taking a bath. In my system, which probably leans toward the bright side, the Cardas is clearly the best, but it may not suit your AR complete. My advice if you want to start cheap to experiment would be to find a used LAT (can be had on Audiogon for around $60), which will be a major improvement over your stock cord. I used this cord on both my CD player and amp with good results. The Blue Circle BC 62 is, in my opinion, an excellent cord for the money (demo I believe currently posted on Audiogon for $165), far superior to the LAT and probably would suit the AR very well. It is an extremely musical cord that does just about everything right and a real bargain at $165 or less. I paid around $200 for a used Cardas Golden and love the cord; it's very lush and "full bodied", some would say "dark" but works extremely well in my system.
