Budget balanced IC recommendations

Acoustic Zen Matrix ICs.

Unclejeff, those links are awesome, thanks.

I have heard AZ makes great cable. I'll check 'em out.

Actually unclejeff gave my website address incorrectly, its www.audiopartsinc.com.

Don't budge from Signal Cable IC's. Nothing better for much more money. Triumph

One cable that I like that I think is often overlooked is the Tara Labs Reference Gen 2. They can be picked up on Audiogon for $125-$200.00. I bought a demo pair from a dealer for $200.00. It may be that they just fit best in my system configuration, but I tried them against the Signal Cable balanced, Kimber Select KS1111, Tara Labs Air 3, and a few others. I thought the Gen 2s were the most tone correct, and had a fuller sound to them, especially extension in the mids and highs. I thought they were also more full and tone correct even compared to their own Air 3s which s a more expensive cable. And again, thought they had better mid and high extension than the $550.00 Kimber Cables. But for $49.00, the Signal Cable sounded pretty darn good. Pretty subjective review here but I think it depends a lot on your system and other cabling. The best sound out of all the cables for me was the Tara cables from Source to preamp, and Kimber from Preamp to AMP. Some strange synergy existed there.