Magnepan 1.7 or used Totem Forest

There are two major factors to consider that no one else can help with.

The first aspect is based on your personal priorities as to what is important in reproduction of music.

The second is these two speakers will interact with your listening room in a dramatically different fashion as the designs are different. The Maggie is a bi-polar design that radiates to the rear as well as the front. The Totem is a more conventional forward radiating box design.

I owned the Maggie 1.6QR for several years and loved it. However, when I moved in 2006, it simply did not work in my new listening room. A pair of more conventional box speakers (Spendor 1/2Es) were a far better choice in terms of interaction with the room.

I'd recommend a trial run of each in your own room if possible. If that isn't an option, you might give some details of your room size, layout, openings and furnishings.

Gosh, you can't go wrong with either but the Maggies will require more powerful amplification than the Totems. The Spendor are hard to find or to obtain. I've been running an ad in the wanted section and I haven't found a pair yet. That goes to show they are great speakers nontheless. But it all depends on the amp you have or are going to buy. Maggie will tell you a good 100 to 200 watt amp is required for the Maggies. And the amp must have good bass control. The McCormack amps drive these nicely as well as Moscode amps are very good on the Maggies.

They are totally different animals. But, despite that, I consider them both to play in the same class of audio quality. I had the MG111a's for 10 years, then went to the Forests. Not exactly by choice-the Magnepan voice coils delaminated from the mylar panels. They never sounded right after the repair (my work, not Magnepans) so I sold them with full disclosure. The Maggies are alot harder to live with, I now have my living room back with the Forests only 2 feet from the back wall. Never heard the 1.7's, but, to sum it up I would have to say that to the hard core audiophile, the 111a's were a better speaker than the Forest. That doesn't mean I like them better though. They both have their atributes. Power was never a problem for me as the 111a's sounded better with 15 watts of tube power than 300 watts of solid state. I don't think the 1.7's can pull off this hat trick. I do think the Forests are more forgiving of placement and other components in the signal chain. The Maggies were ruthlessly revealing of every little thing... cables, 1/4 inch changes in toe in, placement to the walls, etc., etc., etc. Remember now, the 111a's sound is a bit different due to the true ribbon tweeter as opposed to a quazi ribbon-probably closer to the sound of the 3.6.