It is Thursday, New Year's Eve and my sound has changed so much since Monday. There have been a couple of short dips followed by improvement. Last night the sound was expanding down my side walls avery 10 minutes. I now have about 300 hours on the amps
I am big CMS footer fan, but their breakin is a total pain and lasts for at least 14 days if not 21. My amps are on an area rug and on day 3 and I put four 1.5 CMS footers under each. When I had the VAC 450IQ Stereo in the center on the rug on the footers (4 under the power supply and another 4 under the amplifier section (stacked on top of the power supply with good result). I then put a 2 inch thick piece of slate under them and had an immediated and dramatic improvement.
Since I now have two amps the slate does not work, so I had 2 3/4 thick stainless steel plates fabricated, which have about 6 coats of black enamel paint on them for looks and damping. About an hour ago I moved the amps onto the plates, each with 4 1.5 footers under the chassis, not the amp outrigger feet.
While I went somewhat backwards sonically, it was not as bad as a totally new install, although as I am writing this, the bass has disappeared and the soundstage has collapsed (typical CMS breakin stages). So I will probably not report for at least another 150 hours or 2 weeks, which ever sounds better.
I have attached two pictures to demonstrate my craziness
