I definitely listened to the Maggie 1.7's before buying them. Here is my recent "audiophile" history:
I was an double stack Large Advent Loudspeaker guy for about 25 years. Finally told the wife that I needed to upgrade. This is after capacitor upgrades to the Advents (which opened up the sound quite a bit).
My first upgrade was to purchase a McIntosh MA 6300 integrated at 160 wpc/4ohms. Did this because my old Yamaha 760 integrated quit working. It was the "I always wanted a Mac" purchase.
Next up was an Azur 640 CD player. That lasted less than six months but I knew that going in. I was relocating to a new job and my old player died so I bought the Azur quickly on a "good deal".
Then I upgraded to an Audiospace CD8 with tubed front end. Big improvement. Much more detail, bass, and low noise floor.
So now I am a double stack Advent guy with MA 6300 and a CD8 player. Plus vinyl which I will not go into here. This drove the Advents well but I had heard enough to know that the Advents had to step down.
Now the speaker shopping starts:
Snell J7 monitors - in home audition - too small a sound, too analytical
Klipsch towers - just not my cup of tea. Sounded too harsh and not very refined. Probably was the amp for all I know
Jamo 803 monitors - really sweet, musical sound with pretty good, big bass, but I wanted more than that
B&W - several different models including a couple of in home auditions - just too dry and analytical - very specific imaging to the point of not sounding real at all. To me, with B&W, all the sound is there but there is no life. These were through some Classe and Levinson monoblocks at the dealer as well
Martin Logan - just seemed like the bass was not right - just too much of it - like boomy almost. Too much "in your face" for me. Heard through the same Classe and Levinson monoblocks.
Ascend Acoustic Sierra Ones - in home audition - Liked the sound but really did want a bigger sound and not a monitor size sound
Paradigm Signature towers - couple different models - Too brittle, not enough real bass, no texture
Maggie 1.2' - Heard these and fell in love. To my ear they had a sort of Advent sound. One reviewer had stated about 20 years ago that Advents have a sort of electrostatic sound, so maybe I am not that nuts. I could live without the Advent bass because there was so much more detail to hear. However, it did not take long to think that the 1.2's needed more power.
I home auditioned a Krell S300i integrated with 300wpc/4 ohms that blew the Mac away - no warm, woolly Mac sound but the bass and detail were big improvements.
Then the Maggie 1.7's came out last year and I listened to them twice and puchased them last Thanksgiving - five week wait. I was somewhat apprehensive because they did not sound as musical as the 1.2's although they had a lot more detail and more bass.
The 1.7's continue to break in and now have about 250 hours on them. They sound much more musical than they did at the end of last year. Still thought that I was missing the "edges" of the sound and that is how I got to the 1000 wpc W4S gear.
The bass has improved with the location change and I suspect that it will continue to improve as the new W4s breaks in. The Maggie 1.7's will never be the ultimate in bass but the trade offs to go with Walsh Ohms or ML's, for example, seem to great too me at this time.
