Swarthy, if you wanted to wait until October, you could hear tons of stuff at the Rocky Mountain Audio Fest in Denver.
That said, I'd not be too worried about buying ear unheard online. Lots of us do that. There may be some misses, but that's true in any event: the speakers that lasted the shortest in my room are the only ones I auditioned carefully in advance (I did so twice).
Peter Makes excellent speakers and supports his product; his Liberty venture looks very interesting.
All this said, I don't quite understand your notion of a "tight little system": your room, at 20x25 is on the large side, and you will want to look at some larger speakers (like Peter's obelisks) to fill it up.
Hard to give more guidance without a clearer notion of pricepoint; you could certainly do something very nice for the low 5 figures people are mentioning, but with some care, and a willingness to take chances used, half that would be possible (perhaps not easy, with your room).
Finally, don't mind Roxy54's snark on Wyoming: it's just that he prefers traffic to Mountains! ;)
John
