[Photon46]

I agree with the comments downplaying the relative role of sources and equipment beyond the level you already have. My experience is that several hundred thousand dollars of equipment won't make a significant change to the basic sonic signature (brightness) you are hearing. The exception is if you insert tubes or phono cartridges specifically designed to add a rolled off sonic signature, and some clearly are designed as such, for those preferring this path. Component matching may be an issue though.

I would be even more emphatic in disagreeing with recommendations involving cables. Any well designed short cable will reveal what your speakers are designed to sound like and I would be willing to bet that most of us are unable to distinguish properly designed cables (which you already have) and power cords in a true blind test. Any differences that are there are small relative to other factors.  It is your money, but there is a lot of snake oil being sold in audio by people either prone to or preying on human suggestibility. Sorry if I have offended anyone. One guy's opinion, and others clearly disagree.

What will make HUGE differences is positioning and room treatment. These will make orders of magnitude (tens or hundreds) more differences than cables or source upgrades over what you are running. A quarter inch toe in or couple inch movement to the side, forward or back will dwarf any improvement you get from upgrades to already excellent (and properly matched) electronics, let alone cables. 

In some rooms of my house, my Maggies simply do not sound good. The room is too small, or large or whatever. In others they can sound great, but the sound I get is extremely dependent upon placement and treatment. Closer to the front or side wall makes them brighter, as does toe in directly at my ears.  Moving them out past five or six feet plus from the FW, extreme toe in, and the resistors make huge reductions in the brightness, as does the addition of DWM's (I have two). 

Next is room treatment. You may need more absorption on the first reflection points and more diffusion on the FW.

Finally, if placement and treatment don't work, I need to say that you may just not like the sound of your speakers in your room. You may be happier with a larger model, or with DWMs, or another brand. Again, I am only happy with my three series (I have both IIIa's and 3.7i's) in some rooms, in some placements (and never when closer than about four feet to an untreated FW).

These are my thoughts.

Very well stated SwamisCat. I don't disagree with anything you've said. When I think back to the many years I had Maggies, the amps that came and went while I searched for the sound I wanted never resulted in any basic change to the way the system sounded in any given room. It was more about improving the sense of "aliveness," better imaging and rendering of acoustic spaces, delicacy of treble rendition, and sound staging improvements rather than a basic change of character.

Inevitable arguments about the relative merits of blind testing aside, I definitely agree that the differences cables make are relatively small compared to the differences heard between sources, amplification, good vs. poor placement, & room treatment vs. no room treatments. I'm not in the camp that thinks "Blue Jeans Cables are good enough," but I'm also not one to spend as much on cables as a good used car costs either.

[SteveFord]

I guess we'll never know what the problem was with this particular scenario.
You have to look at the .7s and being smaller 1.7s and I've heard the sound the OP was describing. 
It wasn't the speakers and it wasn't the placement, it was one of the components: one was a Class D amp and the other culprit was a set of current production tubes in a preamp.
I've also had some really bad sounding speaker wires and interconnects which just sounded "off" and DACs certainly have their own sonic signatures. 
These speakers are good enough to show up the weakest link.
You have to mix and match until you find what works.

[SwamisCat]

"You have to mix and match until you find what works."

I respectfully disagree, at least in emphasis. Assuming you have well designed, adequately powered components which play nicely together, the rule of thumb  I recommend for getting great sound out of Maggies is as follows:

1). Positioning. Choosing the right room, the right placement, right toe in, right tweeter alignment at the right distance with the correct and optimal seating arrangement. This is substantially more significant than any other change.

2). Room treatment.

3). Equipment mixing and matching for that last couple of percent (granted, once you get the first two, this one becomes increadingly critical).

4). Cables, power cords, Tice Clocks, and proper alignment of jars of BBs on each component (if you align the BB's perfectly you can get the sopranos on Misa Criolla to image from above the house!).

Of course, the most important step is to pick great speakers in the first place.

This is all just my opinion, of course.

[SteveFord]

I wouldn't disagree, except for the BBs. 
The trick is to put the BBs in a jar of honey. 

I just wanted to point out that certain components can really stick out like a sore thumb even if you have everything else right.

[I.Greyhound Fan]

I guess we'll never know what the problem was with this particular scenario.
You have to look at the .7s and being smaller 1.7s and I've heard the sound the OP was describing. 
It wasn't the speakers and it wasn't the placement, it was one of the components: one was a Class D amp and the other culprit was a set of current production tubes in a preamp.
I've also had some really bad sounding speaker wires and interconnects which just sounded "off" and DACs certainly have their own sonic signatures. 
These speakers are good enough to show up the weakest link.
You have to mix and match until you find what works.

I totally agree.  The OP has moved the speakers around and there is only so much you can do with room placement.  He was not having problems with the tweeters.  He was talking about midrange brightness and fatigue.  I had similar issues with a Parasound A21 amp(which I gave to my son) as well as a dac.  New gear fixed the issue.  My DAC made the most improvement in addition to using 1950's Raytheon Black plate tubes in my older preamp and dac which have since been retired and replaced with a Luxman DAC, BAT tube preamp and Pass amp.

The OP is moving on from the Maggies unfortunately.  I think that he should have tried a different DAC.  I have tested and reviewed several high end DAC's with Maggies and just about every Sabre based DAC had an edgy and bright midrange.

[Photon46]

I totally agree.  The OP has moved the speakers around and there is only so much you can do with room placement.  He was not having problems with the tweeters.  He was talking about midrange brightness and fatigue.  I had similar issues with a Parasound A21 amp(which I gave to my son) as well as a dac.  New gear fixed the issue.  My DAC made the most improvement in addition to using 1950's Raytheon Black plate tubes in my older preamp and dac which have since been retired and replaced with a Luxman DAC, BAT tube preamp and Pass amp.

The OP is moving on from the Maggies unfortunately.  I think that he should have tried a different DAC.  I have tested and reviewed several high end DAC's with Maggies and just about every Sabre based DAC had an edgy and bright midrange.

I mention this only to highlight how components can give completely different results in different systems. I have a Luxman CD-05 player (also using its DAC capabilities) and a Sabre based Arcam FMJ CD-37. In my system (not using Maggies anymore,) the Sabre based CD-37 definitely does not have any unpleasant edginess or brightness whatsoever. I prefer the Luxman for most music because it's a bit more refined and nuanced. There is the the slightest bit more emphasis on the attack or leading edge of notes with the CD-37 and suppose that in another system context, that could come across as too much of a good thing.

[I.Greyhound Fan]

I am not condemning all Sabre based DAC's.  It depends upon how they are implemented and what associated amp, preamp, cables and speakers you are using.  But for the most part, the ones that I have heard with Maggies have been fatiguing to me.  I do like the razor sharp detail that they can give.