Connecting Cable Box to Preamp

First is the music from digital in two channel digital? Or in one of the 5.1/7.1 digital formats. they are not compatible. IE an ordinary two channel DAC typically will not accept a dolby surround digital signal.
Canthe box be switched from one format to the other off the optical digital output?
Also some boxes are not 'turned on' to output the digital stream.
When I had Time Warner cable box they always refused to turn it on. Claiming it did not exist.

Finally IF you have a compatible signal, then any two channel dac would work which has balanced out.

It also might be possible to find a cheap reciever with HDMI which can give you an analog out Finding one cheap and with balanced outs???
There may be a DAC out there with an HDMI input and balanced outs..

The quality of the signal over a cable box is usually pretty low, like 96 or 192 kbps. Assuming the cable box has RCA outs, I doubt that getting a separate DAC will provide much better sound than the DAC in the cable box. If the box has RCA outs, I would start with a set of RCA to balanced cables, like the ones available like the Monoprice for $5 a piece.

If the box does not have RCA outs, I would go with a very cheap DAC, given the low quality of the source. It does not have to have balanced out, since you can go RCA to balanced with cables or adapters.

I do not know what quality your cable provider delivers, but I doubt that this is ever going to be a high quality source.

Do the satellite companies have better signals? What about a sate;lite radion receiver?

No expert, but I think the satellite signals are worse. The cable music is fine for background music. Do you have RCA outputs? If so, spend $15 and get the Monoprice RCA to XLR cables and give it a listen. A little more detail on your box and provider would help.