Around 2015 I embarked on a similar journey. I lost a bit of money learning how much room, placement, and components affect speakers sound.
I decided to follow used speaker value and limited the speakers I would try to speakers I could reasonably resell for my initial outlay and with that model I was able to bring about a half a dozen speakers in the same range you're shopping. By listening to what each brand/model excelled at I was able to figure out what I really liked and I was able to take my time doing it. I learned quite a bit tbh and the closer the speakers came to being tonally correct the longer it took me to hear their shortcomings. Sometimes the best designed speakers disagree with the room or components driving them and I didn't realize initially my speaker budget would have to include different components also, and then how do I deal with that issue?
I quit calling 1 speaker better than another because it doesn't work that way. Put in the time! Half the fun is in the hunt anyhow.