Do You Buy Speakers Without Hearing Them?

I'm up against that right now. I want to hear the KEF r 7 Meta but no dealer within reasonable distance. The r7 non Meta are available and at a good discount but if I buy them it will always bother me if I missed something not hearing the Meta ized version. One way or another this will be my last speaker as I am 73.

Just did. I bought some KEF Reference 1’s used, without hearing them. These were preceded by LS50’s, so I figured it was low risk. An excellent upgrade. 

I bought once great speakers from few states away and then company went bankrupt.  Why? Because of poor dealership base.  They had only 3 places for whole US to demo them.  Still love them, but there is no support in case of any problems.  

I've had IMF Monitors and now the KEF 104 a/b so i do know the KEF signature sound, just can't pull the trigger. 

In general no. Descriptions of the sound of speakers is only really effective if done in relation to speakers you have heard and know. Otherwise each qualitative statement has little quantitative information. A comment like a bit bright and detailed could mean anything from something you might not hear it to ear shattering, chalk board scraping sound. It is difficult to talk about without common sign posts.

But after three decades of experience and owning a lower tier speaker from Sonus Faber to verify that they had exactly the sound I wanted, the next two upgrades with the same company and doubling or more my investment was very safe. The outcome was exactly what I expected.