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!
The Horror
After getting back home from “The Show” in Costa Mesa, California this past weekend, I walked over to my stereo system and turned it on. And silently wept. I had held out a feint hope that my cross-over modified 1.7i Maggies and mighty Parasound A21+, fed from a Prima Luna 300 tube preamplifier could somehow manage a slight shimmer of resemblance to the robust setups I witnessed at the SHOW. Not—- on— your —-life. Not even close. I slumped into my over-stuffed couch and stared long and hard at the thing I created: an anemic concoction of false hopes and wishful thinking. The horror, the truth: entry into serious audiophile listening begins with purchase of speakers that cost the price of the car I had to finance for 4 years, closely followed with the added expense of beefy sophisticated electronics and wiring, not a gaggle of cheap wanna-be plastic and tweeks. I so wanted to belong, but that’s turned out to be just a fever dream I’ve got to wake up from. Maybe one day, if ever I have the nerve to rob a bank, find Jimmy Hoffa, or survive a head-on collision from a sleepy Amazon driver, I might make it. Maybe. Feel free to play the violin with two fingers.