I have bought components used on Audiogon fot the very reasons
you state -- to get them into my system where I can experience them with my other components in my listening room. When I get the component that works best, I can usually sell the others for close to what I paid. But, with speakers, I go to HiFi stores and listen to as many speakers as I can -- I want to hear the speakers, narrow down my selection, see how high up the line I want to go before buying. IMO, you can never do too much research on
speakers.
