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A few questions I have on the Maggie's-
Since they are less efficient then other speakers on my list would I be spending tons more than my 1.5k budget to power and enjoy them? Will I be paying a fat monthly tax on my power bill?
They're massive and need to be placed 1/3 into the room so would they obscure a projector beam?
Will I miss the lack of lower bass or do they do a great job without it? If I can put off a sub for later that would be nice.
Lastly, would the Maggie 3.7's be worth eating ramen noodles and using Logitech speakers the rest of the year? I probably don't make nearly as much as anyone else considering these but if they'll make music, movies and games sound amazing for the next 20 years, being conservative for a year seems like no trade off at all. And If it fills the room great on its own I may not feel any rush for rear and center speakers. I read about a grain sound present on Maggie's the 3.7 doesn't seem to have but it could be the kind of nitpicking that is in every speaker review.
I started with the 1.7s and upgraded to the 3.7s. My usage is likely 80-90% 2 channel music with the balance on movies and media.
Part of the problem / lure of Maggies is they are brutally revealing of your equipment when listening to music in 2 channels. I started with an Audio Research D-class amp @ ~ 300W and was happy for about a week until I realized how much I could hear the amp affecting the sound. If you are heavy on the music side, you will want to power them with the best amps you can afford, even if they are used. I was not happy at all about having to upgrade my amps, but I did it and have not looked back since.
Power cost is related to your amp's consumption rate and while the Maggies are current-hungry speakers (as opposed to voltage hungry), they won't be driven full out unless you've got stuff like the T-Rex scenes from Jurassic Park on auto-repeat.
The sweet spot for Maggies can be small for music and placement can be important so eclipsing the edges of your projector screen may be a real concern. I follow the 1/3 placement principle, and would recommend applying it before doing other room treatments.
I cannot say if you will miss bass; that's more a personal listening choice. The 1.7s will not provide the thump-to-the-gut bass of big dynamic drivers (neither do the 3.7s for that matter). But you do get good, tuned bass. You hear notes within their rated range rather than thump-thump-thump.
For "helping" lower bass, matching a sub to the 1.7 is next-to-impossible. 2 fixes are worth looking into.
Magnepan makes a dedicated bass-panel for use with their desktop series. They are small compared to the 1.7s and pricing is around US$750 or so. At CES this year, they hid 2 of these mini panels in their room and played the 3.7s and reviewers thought the bass was better than ever and could not locate where it was actually coming from. Adding the DWMs does not actually extend the bass to lower Hz, but actually increases the amount of the driver surface area, effectively moving more air and making the bass notes that are there appear more prominently.
Also
myesound.com offers custom made stands for Maggies (and all other planar speakers like Quads, as well) which replace the original Maggie footers and make the frame much more rigid and stable, extending bass several Hz lower than Maggie's rating. I have purchased these recently and am waiting for them to be delivered. I can say that Grant at myesound is very helpful and accommodating.
As for 3.7s vs 1.7s, the change fit my particular lifestyle and listening habits. Based on how much 2 channel listening I do, the spending habits on the rest of my life, the quality of my system component and usage (% of movies vs. music) and size of my room, upgrading was the right choice for me. Can people live with the 1.7s happily? Absolutely. There is a noticeable difference between the two (of course!) but it may not be important based on your other considerations.
That said, you can always start small and upgrade later. My dealer took mine back and easily sold them off to someone else. They seem to get bought on A-gon relatively quickly, too.
