Whats wrong?

Several factors could be at play here.

First of all, i don't think that anyone here would consider a computer cd / dvd rom drive and sound card mounted inside of a tower to be a good digital source. Others that are more familiar with such an installation have commented on the complete lack of "audiophile qualities". I'm specifically talking about having a high noise floor or lack of black background, poor soundstage and imaging, lack of dynamics, etc...

The next thing is that most EQ's are not looked upon as being "good" in terms of accurate musical reproduction. They can introduce noise, phase shifts, limited bandwidth, etc... This is not to mention that one can end up with a VERY un-natural tonal balance if you are not careful.

The next thing is that the Parasound amp that you have may not be that well suited to driving your Maggies. From what i can recall, the smaller Parasound amps were both bright and lacking in bottom end. This would become even more noticeable as impedance was dropped. From what i can recall, the little Maggies are already lean and they do present a low impedance to the amp.

As far as the Maggies go, these can require quite a bit of trial and error in terms of placement. Much of what you hear has to do with room acoustics, where the speakers are situated at and how they load into the room and your seated listening position. Obviously, this is something that you can experiment with to a great degree without spending any money what so ever.

As far as your cables go, they are probably not helping the situation any. While these could be changed to somewhat band-aid the situation, i think that i would work on all of the other aspects and worry about this further down the road.

As you have found out, there is more to assembling an enjoyable "hi-fi" than just buying and connecting components. Careful thought and some trial and error will always be involved in setting up a system, regardless of the amount of money spent. With that in mind, it sounds like you have a classic case of "system mismatch" from the info that you've provided. There are several ways to go about correcting this, but most all of it involves replacing or removing gear from your signal chain. Sean
>

Everything is wrong!
1-scrap the equalizer
2-get at least mediocre cables/interconnects. 12-14 gague for the speaker cable.
3-anything will sound better than the bose; however, the maggies are quite hard to make sound great. They have a very narrow sweet spot compared to the bose and really have no bottom end. You will have to be very careful where you place them to get good imaging and decent bass.
4-Get a pre-amp. It is ok to use the computer as a source, but a pre-amp and a nice (yet inexpensive) dvd player will make a world of difference. Computer gear simply is not made to audiophile quality. It is much better for compressed music like mp3s.
5-Finally, your amp is ok. You just may need to supplement the system with a sub if you aren't getting any bass.

Well I applaud your upgrade from Bose to Maggies!!!!!!!!!
That move in itself indates there is hope for you yet! ;-)

Anway, no matter what anyone says, EQs are evil in 2 channel music systems. A music system should not need an EQ to adjust sound quality. Scrap it!

Also, I would suggest the following:

1 - Get a dedicated CD player. Computers just do not compete with them. Plus you have all the fan noise associated with a computer (unless you have silent fans).

2 - Get a more powerful higher current amp/integrated amp. More power will drive those Maggies better. Lots of options out there, it all depends on your budget.

3 - Upgrade you cables.

I would indicate a budget, and I can give you more detailed advice.

KF

Thanks for the replies.

I have two ideas for upgrading:
1. use the digital out from my computer to a DAC
2. buy a dvd/cd player
In both cases I would use a tube preamp, and stick with the parasound for now. I already have a subwoofer so bass is not a problem, and I WILL get rid of the EQ. Which idea should I go with?