I just had to come back and make another listening impressions update. These things are absolutely amazing! I have continued to let them break in - I'm guessing they have about 100 hours on them now. Tonight I sat down and they sounded so fantastic I decided to revisit the Magnepan's and do some AB testing to see how they stacked up. To my utter shock and amazement - to my ears - the X-Statik's now sound better than the Magnepan 1.7i's. To reach this point from where things started is a complete revelation to me regarding break in. In 25 years of being an audiophile I have never witnessed this kind of transformation before - it's like they are a completely different speaker.
The highs are now sweet without being overly harsh. They are still *slightly* brighter than the Maggie's, but not so much that I'm getting listening fatigue. The midrange has blossomed into a beautiful, rich sound that is every bit as intoxicating as the Maggie's, while delivering more detail and speed. The bass remains excellent - very fast and tight. The soundstage is interesting - when listening to the Maggie's, a singer can often sound like they are coming from all around you - whereas with the X-Statik they are generally more centrally located. That initially made me feel like the midrange was distant, but it's not - it's just different. It's actually more realistic sounding than the maggie's - which leads to the imaging. Imaging is superior on the X-Statik for sure. The singer can be precisely located as can nearly every instrument with great separation. The X-Statik's are also very noticeably faster and more detailed than the maggie's which I found a bit surprising. Lastly, that open and airy "holographic" quality is now in full swing as well. Truly, the X-Statik's are doing it all. I went from hating them to loving them in around 100 hours of break-in.
To do the AB testing I had the Maggie's hooked up to my Lyngdorf TDAI-2170 integrated amp and the X-Statik was hooked up to my Primaluna Evo 300 integrated amp which is paired with an RME ADI-2 FS DAC. This allowed me to simply mute one amp and unmute the other to quickly switch back and forth. As such, it isn't a direct comparison, but I know the Maggie's sounded significantly better in this same arrangement before extended break in.
There were also several other new components in the mix - I had some new power cables, I just built some new speaker cables, and I had a new DigiBuss line conditioner that all needed break in as well. Still, all of these things were used with the Maggie's apart from the speaker cables - so the changes were primarily due to the X-Statik's breaking in.
All I can say is that I am thrilled with them!