New to this hobby please help me

The Marantz is only rated to six ohms. The golden ears are a 4 ohms. which will cause excessive current draw, overheating, distortion, damage or failure. You are fortunate, you have two stores that you can listen to, plus a Best Buy. It is 300 miles to my closest Hifi shop. You also are only 120 miles from Los Angeles so it sounds like you get to do a lot of speaker listening too homework. Lucky you!

You have to consider room dimensions in your speaker choices.

You should list your room size and the kind of music that you listen to if you would like some recommendations from this group! Do you want standmount or floorstanders?

Get on the home theater enthusiasts facebook group and ask if there are guys nearby who'll let you audit their hometheater rigs. Play different genres of music on it too, of course and see how it sounds. Take a few months to audit different things. The more you audit at the houses of different dudes to determine what you like/don't like, the more cash you will save in the long run.

Get one of these coolers and set it on top of your marantz. It should keep your marantz alive and kicking as you roughhouse it with the different speakers you might buy.

https://acinfinity.com/equipment-cooling/aircom-s7-receiver-and-av-component-cooling-fan-system-top-exhaust-12/

Good luck.

Absolutely take your time. Training your ears to hear the difference in speakers (and not the components) takes time. There are many different classes of speakers... like Sonus Faber like are natural and musical, B&W like big kick with a highlight on details, planar speakers are really fast with amazing mid range. 

I would not expect to get it perfect the first time. But I would take a few trips. Go to places where you can listen to three or four different speakers with the same components powering them. Try and listen to the music and not the system. You may, like I did... purchase the pair that emotionally connects with you. For me... they all sounded pretty similar... and one pair brought tears to my eyes when they played one of my favorite songs. I could not tell you why (I could explain not 45 years later) But that was it... I emotionally connected with them and they were a great choice. 

Probably at this stage do not put "get the best deal possible"... buy used to get something of higher value" unless you happened to hear something used that you connect with. Getting a speaker from the wrong family of sound, is not going to be as pleasing as getting a "cheaper one" with the sound you want. It's kind of like wine, choosing the right bottle may not be the most expensive. 

If you want to start learning... get Robert Harley’s book The Complete Guide to High End Audio. Read while you are evaluating. 

Get the right speakers and you will find yourself listening to music 90% of the time.