You may or may not make Paradigms your final choice, but I feel they are a speaker which has a good balance of doing everything well without any aspects that really call attention to itself (in a good or bad way). As such, I think they make a good reference standard for auditioning other speakers.
Of course, the real problem is getting speakers from two different shops into the same room! Ask each and every dealer you see about bringing speakers into their shop and also if they have a policy about returning speakers. So far I have found one dealer that will let me bring anything into their shop and one that will let me buy their display models (or open box stock) and return them with no penalty.
It is just the way I'm wired, but once I have narrowed the field, I am willing to pay a little money (
reasonable shipping fees or restocking fees) to be able to have the speakers side-by-side in my room for several days just to make sure.
In your position, I would first trial several free audition mail order speakers (Amperion, The Speaker Company, etc) pick your champion from those and take it to the local dealers and see how things shake out. I'd bet that you could even extend the 30 day trial a week or two with the mail order companies if you got tight on timing.
