The Horror

Good post! Most everyone has experienced this at least once. Many are in clubs and share their listening room because as other have stated, room treatment is the most important thing you can do. You can't overcome it with a brand lol.
I really appreciate that for the most part you stuck to well known brands. If more followed this in their basic system there would be far fewer issues. 

An ARC pre, a class A Pass amp, and B&W, Focal, KEF (even Tekton)... or many others will sound great in most rooms treated and tuned for that system. 

Go crazy with a DAC... Lampizator, Mola Mola, Nagra...

And your TT if you want to put $50K into that. 

I loved the references to F1... Well let's take it down a few notches. Guy's that club race on weekends put all they can into theirs car. But I assure you.. The car is a proven winner. Mustang, Camaro, Porsche... But what they do with the motor and suspension makes or breaks the deal. 

I too own Maggie 1.7i’s, but powered by a Rotel 1090 amp and Musical Fidelity v90 DAC. Mamaw always told me, don’t mess around with audio heroin, there are people out there running with AV receivers and Polk speakers. Be thankful for what you have. We’re here to say it’s OK (well, most of us). Get some sleep, and I promise you the feeling will subside, given you don’t run into stupid money.

You have some excellent components!  I also have Magnepan 1.7i's in my system, and have owned other Maggies over the years.  I totally agree with the folks who indicate that you need to spend time with your setup and room. My system is in a small, dedicated listening room that contains only one chair.  I've always found Maggies to be a "one listener" speaker. I have spent literally years in my room tweaking things as basic as toe-in to optimize image specificity vs. width of soundstage.  An inch or two can make all of the difference with the setup of these speakers.   From your system photos I see some glaring issues.  For example, one of your photos shows a speaker firing directly into the side of your sectional couch with a book shelf adjacent to it piled high with books.  That's gotta be wreaking havoc with what you're receiving from that speaker in your listening position.  The speakers are also very close to reflective walls behind them.  Due to the size of my listening room, I can only have my speakers about 3 feet out from the wall, but have room treatment behind each speaker to compensate for that.  Maggies can be very tricky and frustrating to get properly set up, but when you get it right their magic is intoxicating.  Best of luck!

Yes, today you will need to spend at least $20K on speakers to get large sound like you heard at the show. You can save a bit if you go with professional speakers from brands like Genelec, PMC, ATC, but have to give up nice furniture style appearance, though they commonly come with embedded power amplifiers. For analog electronic I would only choose between two brands: Luxman and Accuphase, and here you can save again buying few years old devices directly from Japan. I am not believer in cables and you will make more difference in sound by adding sound treatment in your room. I never was a fan of Magnepan and did not find even their biggest models sound compelling.

ap1….

I can certainly understand your not appreciating what Maggies can do for your personal listening pleasure. However, when you limit the entire universe of amps to just two brands, and also not hear any differences between cables, it kinda limits the strength of your arguments…  Just hoping that you’re finding pleasure with your rig, as that’s what it’s all about. Happy listening.