I’m surprised you haven’t received any responses.
I owned the Maggie 1.7is and the Vandy 1Cis. Overall, I think the 1Cis are the better speaker. The 1.7s require 80db ^ volumes to really open up. At lower volumes, they sound anemic and have little dynamics.
The 1Cis have deeper bass and are far less power hungry. Additionally, they have a more realistic timbre and decay. To my ears, they’re superior in every way, with the exception of midbass speed and slight distortion in the upper midrange of some songs.
I’ve since moved onto KEF LS50s. These speakers are about as musical as the Vandys, but have a more refined midrange. They don’t sound as "open" but have a wide sweet spot that doesn’t require painstaking setup. My room is rather large for the KEFs, so I fill in the lowest octaves with a sub.
Even though I used resistors with the Maggie’s and the treble attenuator of the Vandys, some recordings were still overly ripe in treble. My Yamaha amp has tone controls but I never reach for them with the KEFs
For reference, my ears are 32 years old. I’m not a musician but have many musicians in my family (my daughter currently plays the viola) and I’m familiar with the sound of live instruments. When shopping for my reference system earlier this year, I auditioned dozens of speakers under $5K and concluded my search with Spendor SP2/3R2s.
I owned the Maggie 1.7is and the Vandy 1Cis. Overall, I think the 1Cis are the better speaker. The 1.7s require 80db ^ volumes to really open up. At lower volumes, they sound anemic and have little dynamics.
The 1Cis have deeper bass and are far less power hungry. Additionally, they have a more realistic timbre and decay. To my ears, they’re superior in every way, with the exception of midbass speed and slight distortion in the upper midrange of some songs.
I’ve since moved onto KEF LS50s. These speakers are about as musical as the Vandys, but have a more refined midrange. They don’t sound as "open" but have a wide sweet spot that doesn’t require painstaking setup. My room is rather large for the KEFs, so I fill in the lowest octaves with a sub.
Even though I used resistors with the Maggie’s and the treble attenuator of the Vandys, some recordings were still overly ripe in treble. My Yamaha amp has tone controls but I never reach for them with the KEFs
For reference, my ears are 32 years old. I’m not a musician but have many musicians in my family (my daughter currently plays the viola) and I’m familiar with the sound of live instruments. When shopping for my reference system earlier this year, I auditioned dozens of speakers under $5K and concluded my search with Spendor SP2/3R2s.