Where are your maggies??

Thanks to everyone for some great feedback and suggestions!...I like the idea of having 5 maggies, but going to jail has limited appeal, thanks Eldartford!

Just to clarify a couple of points that were raised:
The speakers are fully broken in, as is the amp.
The room does have a suspended floor, but it isn't one that bounces around when walked on, it's solid.
I gave the dimension out from the front wall at 10 feet, it's actually at 7 feet now, with 18 feet to the chair and 3 feet to the back wall. I'm restricted on pulling the chair forward, but I tried it on a temporary basis at 12 feet and it does sound different, better imaging and more space around instruments.

Some things I've noticed in the last 24 hrs since I first made the post: The speakers are incredibly revealing of the source, anything that is a remotely average recording is delivered warts and all. (I guess I should have known this, but this is my first real venture into a higher level of equipment).
It's interesting that some CD's that I thought previously were well recorded, now sound quite poor, whereas others that previously sounded average now sound quite spectacular. Two example of what previously sounded good on my old system are Claptons Unplugged and the Santana revival CD (can't recall the name). Both these were commonly used to demonstrate the 'fidelity' of my old rig, where now I can hardly stand to play them at any kind of volume. The Santana CD sounds compressed with poor dynamic contrast and the Clapton CD just lacks any warmth and midrange presence.
Other CD's sound spectacular - Diana Krall, Nora Jones, Chieftens, some classical etc....

Anyway, I will try the Cardas setup, though I understand that it requires an equilateral triangle between speakers and chair, which may be difficult to get past the wife....incidentally, her first comment on seeing them in the room was "I thought you said they were only a couple inches wide?" (I never lie to her!).

.....I have some work to do on amps/placement, but I really think these are incredible speakers, with tons of potential given some time, and some extra cash!!

I'm still very much open to more suggestions from anyone who has experienced these and has found things that work well regarding amps/placement.

Thanks again

Rooze

OK, Roose, here's a serious response that may actually help you. I owned the 3.6s for 6 months and ran them in a room 16X25 (about 1/4 of your space, I think, but my experience may still be appropriate for you). I bought them new, and during the first month I had reservations exactly like yours. I tried a decent subwoofer (REL Stadium) but found it dirtied up the midrange a bit and changed, but did not improve, the character of the bass. (This has always been my complaint about using subwoofers with full-range speakers, feel free to think I'm nuts if you want). I got a selection of resistors from the dealer ranging from 1 to 5 ohms. This helped with the brightness issue, and it can be fun to play with different values and jumper wires. Amps ranged from Belles 150 to Sim W-10s (1250wpc into 4 ohms). While I agree with many of the comments regarding the need for high wattage/current, I think your 250i, with 250wpc into 4 ohms and 30 amps peak current, should be sufficient for you to find out if you're really going to love these speakers. Three factors were most important in
getting me to love mine: (1)the Maggies broke in over 30 days, (2)my ears broke in (surprise!)in just about the same period--i.e. my frame of bass reference went from big, deep, somewhat bloaty cone bass to leaner, better defined panel bass that had shape and tonal color; and I became accustomed to, and welcomed, the pristine detail available from the remarkable Maggie high-frequency ribbon. As the days passed, I went from the 5 ohm resistor to the 2, the 1, and eventually none. Let's not forget (3) room placement: I found I was able to hear more bass by placing my chair closer to the back wall. You're at 3 feet now--try bringing it back to a foot or two. Bring the speakers much closer to you if the room arrangement/traffic flow allows--I bet they're getting swallowed up in that big room. I listened to my Maggies in a semi near-field position, with the speakers 10-12 feet away from my ears, and my ears about 2 feet from the back wall. Side walls are irrelevant in your case. Toe-in is most crucial to the tonal balance and of course tweeter position is too. Try putting the tweeters to the inside with extreme (45 degree) toe-in, and adjust back in 1-inch increments. Start with the speakers only 8 feet apart on center (this should fill the hole and "warm" the sound quite a bit. The idea here is to create your own little room inside the big room, but with the speakers facing in to the "room" instead of outward into your huge space, as others have suggested. You're mostly there already--I'm just suggesting you shrink the listening area a bit. Break-in of both speakers and ears, and demands of certain musical material, will probably have you adjusting speaker width and depth, flipping tweeter postion and diddling with resistors and jumpers as time goes on. All part of the audiophile fun.
My point is that the 3.6s can be fussy bastards, but they're worth it. I sold mine in a fit of audiophilia nervosa ("onward and upward!") but nothing I've had since then--all WAY more expensive, has given me as many goosebumps. I hope you don't give up on them too soon.

The Cardas room setup uses the short wall as front. From your description, it sounds like your front wall is the long wall.
In either case, 10 feet is probably too far from the front wall (behind the speakers).
A search came up with this site which may help:
room setup

My REL Stadium III is set in the room using the easy steps from the distributor's website and it sounds great. It dials in at B2, 34 hz on the chart. I have not used a meter to determine the speaker performance, but that is the bottom end spec for the maggies. Nearly every recording in my collection benefits from the sub providing the music below 35 hz., where the maggies roll off. I use the high level input to the REL from the amp and do not have any degradation of the midrange.

I also suggest getting stands from Mye Sound for your MG3.6R speakers.

I bought my 3.6's new and had the roller coaster ride. The brightness puzzles me because you don't have reflectve surfaces. Pay attentention to the toe-in they mention in the manual for this will affect the phase relationship between the bass and the tweeter.

The amp does indeed need to be a brute. The Maggie spec's are misleading on sensitivity. They use a voltage figure instead of the 1 watt/1 meter spec'. That shows a speaker that is actually less sensitive than what is first believed. So, even though it may be a fine integrated, the power supply probably can't keep up, especially in the cavernous room you are listening in. Try using the Spectron Musician II. It is a digital amp that puts out 650 wpc into 4 ohms with 40 amps of current. I have had this thing cranked in my 13x26 room to the point where the fuses on the speakers quit the next day just on power up. But, we had a rock concert goin' on with ZZ Top right in front of our eyes. This is a fantastic amp. I can say that as I have owned 28 amps in the past 13 years and I started this whole hobby off with listening to Maggies.

The rest of my system is a Sony SCD-1, Kern modified SACD player feeding an Eastern Electric MiniMax tube pre. Harmonic Tech Pro Silway MK111 interconnects are used with Spectron's sense cables used on the output of the amp to the speakers. I have also chucked the metal factory-supplied jumpers. I replaced them using Audio Magic silver jumpers.

Finally, get some of the Mye Stands to firm those panels up. You have that big room and the panels are just rocking back and forth with the bass they are being fed. The stands will give you great bass and will provide so much more information retrieval that the factory stands will be useless.

Good luck and don't give up the ship...yet.

I second the suggestion of moving the panels to about four feet from the back wall; start there and experiment. Also, IMO Maggies LOVE tubes. 200 watts of quality tube power should do it. I use Manley Reference 200/100 mono's, and in my very large listening room I get an incredibly large and dimensional soundstage, without too much brightness.

Good luck.