Interconnect Help

Kind of hard to make a recommendation without knowing what you're currently using. That said, I have found the Acoustic Zen Silver Reference II to be nicely detailed up top while still doing a good job allowing tonal colors to come through.

Mogami 2549 with decent connectors (I used the Neutrik ProFi - about $50 a pair). Just ordered my second batch to outfit my whole system. Pro Audio LA can put these together for you. Very flexible cable to boot.

Yes, power conditioner does make a difference. Even my inexpensive Furman 1215 did, especially in highs and upper midrange. Also, in my system it did nothing bad which is just as important. But better ones are quite expensive even used, starting at about $900 or so.

Audioquest Columbias are a very revealing IC - at least I've found them to be that way in my rig.

Can be found used here in the length and price you've mentioned.

What do you use now? Is it for digital, analog or both? What is the rest of your system? It is hard to recommend anything without knowing it.

I listen to a lot of acoustic guitar, Tommy Emanual, Frank Vingola, Chet Atkins, Mark Knophler, Earl Klugh, Rodrigo y Gabriella, Segovia, etc.... My IC's are DNM with the HFTN upgrade. It is like having no cable at all between my Dac and Pre.
Good-luck

Try cleaning all your systems contacts with deoxit (cables/binding posts/IECs/fuses).

Then let the system settle for an hour & see if that helps. If it does not help, then look into a new cable type. You may be lucky.

If it's realistic guitars you want than it's Shunyada you need .

I'm very happy with Acoustic Zen Absolute 0.5m XLR that I bought used for $600. Foam Teflon, oversize tubes, 7N zero crystal silver (with 1% copper), 6.1pF/ft 20nH/ft - it doesn't get better than that, at least for the price. Very clean, open, dynamic and neutral. It is 20% more than you're willing to spend and is not easy to find it in 0.5m (1m runs at $800 used) but don't think twice, when you see it for sale.

If the present cable is also only 1.5 feet or so, I would not expect that changing it will affect the treble significantly.

If the present cable is significantly longer than that, reducing the length and selecting a cable having lower capacitance per unit length may help, to a greater or lesser degree depending on the output impedance of the component driving the cable (the higher the component's output impedance, the more difference it would make).

Blue Jeans LC-1 offers very low capacitance at a very low price. Oyaide PA-02TR, available from The Cable Company, also has very low capacitance, at a somewhat higher price.

IMHO. Other opinions will differ.

Regards,
-- Al