Looking for a reasonably priced good quality interconnect

I second DIY. I use solid core silver signal conductors, OCC neutral conductors and KLEI pure harmony solid silver connectors. I utilize a helix design (on all my cables, actually). Reasonably easy to make and less than $200 in materials. Most importantly, they sound incredible.

Here's a link to the helix design. It comes from williewonka, a member here.
http://www.image99.net/blog/files/category-diy-cables.html

You would need to burn/buy a CD of pink noise. You can generate it using a variety of software. Or just use the pink noise generating software and hook up your computer to the USB input. I’ve not done that yet, so I can’t speak to its difficulty. Or just put Tidal or Pandora on with a mix of music and you’ll be fine.

You don’t have to have the volume on the preamp turned up at all, but the pre should be on.

I've used blue jeans cables. They are solid performers, but I'd think you'd notice the improvement using 'fancier' cables. Equipment doesn't have to be expensive to notice the difference in cables, just resolving.

No need to burn in optical cables