I would recommend a trip to a big city. I used to do the 100 - 200 mile trips to a city. Set up some time at an couple audio stores over Saturday… or take my partner and spend the weekend. The difference in sound can be huge. It isn’t just better… there are families of sound… like natural / musical versus detailed and analytical. It is best your ears / heart pull you in a direction. The stuff that you are emotionally drawn to.
Schiit is really good budget stuff… no question. I recommend it all the time. But it is so useful to have something in mind… like, “I want it to sound like that”. Maybe “that” is a $500K system, but that is OK. When you know what “kind” of sound you want, then you can get affordable versions of “that sound”.
Return privileges don’t help unless you know exactly what you want. It will fall into the category of sounds fine. But unless you hear dozens of systems, how do you know.
I have heard at least a dozen $250K+ systems. I liked them all… but only one or two were what I wanted. All great.