You are right on the money about that. There are dealers out there that will let you audition the speakers in your home, however, generally they will probably only do that if you are a good customer and obviously have a history with them. I have one that sells the entire Paradigm line and back several years ago they let me audition a couple of newer models in my home. It was amazing the difference in performance from the store in comparison to my room since because, in the end, they weren't really any improvement to what I already had, so I ended up returning them both.
Of course the dealer didn't object because, among other things, just a couple of months prior I had spent $3200 on a top of the line Yamaha AVR. Of course, unlike Axiom, if I was a first time buyer there is no way they would even allow me to take them out the door without payment in full and probably wouldn't let me bring them back for a full refund if I didn't like them.
