Anything I have ever bought on the basis of review, recommendation, blog or thread is no longer in my system. (Almost) the only components that have brought the system up in sound quality, that continue to give pleasure, are components that I have been allowed to try at home in the rest of the system in the room where they play. In the long run (and I've been swapping out audio gear for 50 years or so) you'll save money by avoiding the bargains.
That's only possible with a dealer's help. I've had dealers bring in gear and set it up and let me listen for weeks before deciding. In a few cases, I have (somewhat sheepishly) declined to buy it, and they have been OK with that. Why? Because if you are honest with them, they can accept the loss of time and income it takes them to allow you a true audition, knowing that it's part of their cost of doing business, and it's going to cost the customer more if he/she decides to keep the gear. Of course it may take some time before they're willing to trust you with a $50K component, so the relationship gets built slowly.
Most often the dealer is NOT local. If you want to listen to a range of high-end gear, you'll be working with dealers all over the country. I don't have any "local" dealer closer than 200 miles away. In one case, he made multiple trips to my home to set up a turntable, then again to upgrade the arm. (I did buy that). In another case, I made an appointment to audition a CD/DAC stack, the dealer spent an entire afternoon with me alone, and yet I did not buy it. But I kept the dealer (and the US distributor) aware of my reasoning at all stages. It may not have been the outcome they hoped for, but they knew I was a serious buyer, not fooling with them, and they accepted that. I expect one day I could go back to that dealer and audition something else, and they would be just as accommodating.
I've bought a pair of huge floor standing speakers from a dealer on the other side of the country, after hearing them twice at shows, and this is the one exception to my listen-at-home rule. The advantage was paying no tax and no shipping, and I got a very good price on new up-to-date gear by saving him the trouble. But I was pretty certain of what I was getting, because I already owned a smaller model from the same manufacturer.
Once, a dealer in another state shipped me a very heavy and expensive phono stage for home audition, and to my own surprise, I didn't like it. It cost me less to ship it back than it would have cost to fly there, plus by hearing it at home I got a much more accurate impression of the gear. But we're still friends.
