When choosing new Speakers, what matters most to you?

1. Price

2. If I've heard them and liked the sound, otherwise if I have a trusted friend who has.

3. Looks (size/dimensions)

4. Reviews

5. Specs

6. My other components and how they mesh

I presently have the JBL L-100 Classic 75th Anniversary Edition. I heard the L-100's, liked them, then with the new look and special edition that was it, then built my system around them.

In 65 years, I have never bought a non-American owned, non-Union made car. Not a whole lot of people can say that, but it’s one thing I can take to the grave and be proud of. At least I tried.

Used to drive a Toyota Camry. It had more American content than any other car manufactured at the time.

When choosing new speakers, what matters the most to me are the specs. I need to be able to anticipate how the speakers will sound in my room. Speaker design is not alchemy nor voodoo. It is a well understood science. Life is short, I have no time to listen to a speaker system whose designer could not bother giving me the specs. Then I listen to the speakers in MY ROOM with my electronics. If it pleases me I buy if not, NEXT. There are a lot of good ones to choose from. 

detailed specs are a great guide but they only go so far for me. i MUST be IN THE ROOM with the speakers, playing MY music ONLY, what i am familiar with. if it sounds musical but doesn’t image well, FAIL. if it images like 3D holography but sounds bad, FAIL. gotta be the whole package, with imaging AND great sound [with a notably luxurious never-flagging EASE] that never fatigues, never is edgy even with harsh-sounding material IOW it doesn’t make edgy-sounding stuff more edgy. the system must make low-level signals clearly audible with no straining to hear. my present system using Thiel cs.5 speakers does this, and before that my maggies did it. the energy 22 pros had it about like my thiels. the snell class A [revised] had it. a speaker i couldn’t afford or even have room for, the magnapan tympani IIIs, they had it in spades. so to answer the OP’s query, it can’t just be one thing. obviously, if the speaker is a 2-ohm power drainer and amp wrecker, it is disqualified no matter how otherwise splendidly it performs as i can’t afford a krell monster amp or its ilk. so there are practical considerations as well.

“Auditioning” some speakers as I write this. (Sort of…)

Ive had a speaker design in mind for a while, ordered the parts, built the enclosure and spent several days tweaking  the crossover and damping. They are at a point now where I need to listen to them for a while to see what is missing and what is bothering me.

No measurements as of yet. There was obviously some math that needed to be done prior to any of this happening based on specs of the driver and the components. Since CV19 happened I’ve built at least 3 dozen pairs of speakers. I’ve been working towards the pair I am currently listening to. 

Not sure I really care how they measure, but I will be doing detailed measurements as I may take them to market. (Which is what the last year and a half has been about - building, listening and trying things)

So, the question is timely for me as I met with my business partner earlier today and discussed what I thought the problem with the the sound presentation was. He didn’t hear anything out of place, and I explained what I thought was off and how I planned to address it.  Then we discussed measurements and what to do if they measured terribly. Am I all of a sudden not going to like them? Does it invalidate what I’ve worked towards, designing and building a speaker that I, and everyone who has listened to them,  really enjoy?

Emotional resonance, tonal presence, contrast, clarity, balance, physicality and impact are what I listen for. Do they present an engaging image of the recording? Not a live performance, but rather the recording.

Much study has gone into these, but in the end it’s about how they sound. I have never bought speakers based on measurements beyond the basics of sensitivity, impedance and size.