How does one pick in this situation?

I've brought so many passive speakers home to find they sound nothing like the demo, usually once home the bass is mia!  Use Best Buy to listen to some speakers in your room and system just to get a feel for what to expect. Some speakers need insane power, My blades sounded great cranked up with a 300wpc amp driving them, but were kinda dull and lifeless at low volumes until I threw a couple 600 wpc monoblocks on them. You have to educate yourself, decide on what component your building around and commit. Shopping at resale prices helps minimise  damage.

@labguy: not sure how helpful you'll find this. However, FWIW, I sympathize completely with the dearth of high-end and/or good quality stereo shops in some areas of the planet. Regardless, I've always felt that driving a couple hundred miles or quick weekend flights to get to & from good quality stereo shops is perfectly acceptable in order to make informed decisions regarding stereo toys, especially expensive ones, and most especially for expensive speakers. Take a spouse, a friend! Make a fun long weekend vacation out of the excursion(s)! Of course, one should always carefully communicate with the targeted shops beforehand in order to orchestrate as fair a demo or audition as possible (e.g.  dimensions & acoustic characteristics of your home sound room; placement limitations; components; what you're looking for; specifying which components you want the shop(s) to use in order to approximate, as closely as possible, what you have; bring music you are thoroughly familiar with; etc.). Explain what you are doing and make no bones about the fact that you don't want them wasting your time! Admittedly, there is no substitute for gauging what various components will truly sound like in your own home, most especially speakers. However, with a modicum of audiophile know-how, you can come pretty close.

As for the remark "some of my music that I listen to is poorly recorded", all I can say is that I've experienced this dilemma, as well, frequently after upgrading various components. As a result, I've slowly started to replace those recordings, when possible, with better produced, better engineered and better recorded copies.

Good Luck!

@llg98ljk could you give an example of what integrated amp you would pair for each one of those…

If I was starting over, a Lyngdorf TDAI would be on my list.
And if the room is troublesome, then it would move up the list.

Looking at the photo of your room, I’d make acoustical treatments a high priority.

Again if the OP is in a WAF constrained, then the Lyngdorf sort of makes sense here as well. 

@rmdmoore 

+1 Take a trip… listen to a wide variety of speakers, without prejudice. You want to find a brand (they have house sound) that has an emotional connection. 
 

Take your wife, take her out in the evening. Let her shop somewhere else while you audition speakers.

If you make this part of the pursuit, over time you will start being able to separate which sound is coming from the speakers vs components. Listening to different systems is very educational.

Just buy and try if its within budget.