how long to break in a power conditioner?

Minimally, you may wish to take a look at a Furman Elite 15PF or a used IT-Reference of some form. They both have a dedicated bank of 4 outlets that are setup to deal with high-demand amplifiers.

Update:

I can say for sure now that this is a break in issue. I realized that the dac draws about 20 watts and got thinking that I might change things a bit by putting a high current draw on the thing for a few hours to see what that would do, and it helped TREMENDOUSLY!!! What I did was to take a heater that draws about 1200 watts and put it on for about 12 hours. The cloudy phasey sound I was getting improved markedly after this. I still wish it were better, but it has gone from being unacceptable to decent. I think I'll give it another run of that over the next few days and see if I can get things completely settled down.

To those of you who posted here and emailed me privately, I wish to say thank you very much!!! I don't know if I'll ever get the results I had at first, but at least it doesn't sound muddy and dull anymore.

All that being said, I believe that I need to explore the world of power conditioners further. I should be able to put about 300 dollars into this after the first of the month, and would appreciate any suggestions for power conditioners used or new in that price range that might be able to handle the current demands of my pass x350 and isolate it from the other system components.

Thanks again,
Roland

Z: we've agreed to disagree on this topic many times ! Your equipment (and my
Hydra8 and Furman units) all sounded great, ready to go and different from what they
replaced (or nothing if that was the case) when first plugged in.

Just like anything else I and many others have owned, once things like capacitors form up,
copper wiring, copper bus bars,transformers, etc...break in, the character of the sound changes,
and continues to improve to a point that varies with the component in question. I had the same experience
on that pair of Tara 0.5 AES/EBU cables; they were awesome and 'ready to go' when first plugged in and
much to my amazement, got better and better over the 1st 2 weeks of 24x7 usage. A similar but less
dramatic break-in occurred on that Audience ePowerChord...

I'm sure this will evoke a lively discussion and a long phone call later, LOL!

HMMM, The Audience and Tara (passive) I have tried are done by the time I sit down to listen.

Break-in has seemed to be about 200-300 hours on the Shunyata Hydra8 and Furman IT-Reference 20i and Elite 15PF I've owned depending upon unit in question...

You shouldn't be using the Monster 3600 if you are using stuff like Pass Labs. Try the PS Audio's Duet or Quintet. They are good for your large amp as well. Have fun.

I had a pair of Monster units a few years ago and I found they sounded much better when sitting on Starsound Audio Points.

Dave

My Haley sounds better with some weight on it. Try putting it on different surfaces, too. Make sure your cabling isn't on the carpet. I use whiskey glasses to rest the cabling on. Of course, check to make sure all connectors are all the way in. You aren't using an OEM PC from the Monster to the wall, are you? I'm not too familiar except with the stuff for home theater. Do their units have removable cords, or are you stuck with their cable?
Don't forget, its NFL playoff time. If you're listening when the games are on, there's lots of nasties out there.

I think everyone has had the experience of their system sounding wonderful [and terrible] on occasion. If you continue to use the conditioner and don't get the same sound then probably the conditioner was not the cause of the better sound. It does not sound like a break in issue, if it was the sound would get progressively better, yours was better then got worse. Personally, I have had better luck with dedicated lines but when I couldn't have them found a conditioner helped. If it does improve the sound I would hold on to it until I found something better. The new PS Audio high end conditioner is suppose to be great, if I wanted to spend the money that is where I would look.