There are lots of advantages living in a small town, I am a bit jealous. But local auditions is not one of them.
I highly recommend a trip to the big city. Make appointments to audiotion specific speakers. No, you cannot audition everything, but you don’t have to. You want to become familiar with a few main stream speaker types. They have a house sound. So if you like Sonus Faber, or Wilson, or Magico… then they all will be similar with greater dynamics, resolution, and imaging as you go up the levels.
By auditioning some mainstream speakers you can then go back and read professional reviews… The Absolute Sound, Stereophile, and HiFi+… stick with these mostly. And that should calibrate you to those you have heard and allow you to read reviews of others you have not heard… if those seem to fit your tastes best.
Speakers are really the key determinate of the sound you are going to want to choose carefully. Typically you do this first… but there are no absolutes, you can do it in any order. Just because some folks here paired a speaker with your electronics does not mean you will like the sound.
If your wife is game, take her… to a show and dinner in the evening. Make it a weekend. Or get up early… make a mad dash for a few hours. You’ll have the trip back to mull over what you heard.
