What do you consider the most when choosing a pair of speakers?

Looks.  Aesthetics.   Visual presentation.  Then what it sounds like.  Like a wonderful $250 dinner for two.  Eyes feast first.  Then the mouth.

Avantgarde?  I don't care what they sound like.  Not in my home. 

I find that the two go hand and hand.

Just look at Sonner, Sonus faber, Rosso Fiorentino, QLN, Martin Oscar, Joseph Audio. All are fantastic sounding speakers and have the aesthetics also.

@bkeske +1 Tone is the absolute starting point. 

@djones51 Incredible curve. 

How they sound would be the very first thing I would look for. Second to that would be the specs but you can’t believe a lot of the marketing hype these days, not just audio and speaker hype. Also, the opinion of others, especially in audio forums like this where we speak the same language.

Here’s were I have a problem. I would like to be able to do A - B comparisons. I live about 2 hours from any of the high-end audio stores. My experience is dealers only carry the products they are dealers for. This really limits my choices.

Add to that now the expensive price of fuel, and it is hard to pick up and drive around to other stores since I’m already two hours from home. I might have an interest in a JBL L100 Century and a Klipsh but it is unlikely I am going to compare the two side-by-side.

I’ll tell you what I ended up doing this week. I have a set of Celestion Ditton 66 Studio Reference Monitors. I am replacing the diaphragms right now and plan to recap them after. I do not have another set of speakers to use while I tear them down so I thought about buying a second pair to tied me over. But as I described above, it’s not easy for me to get access and try.

I ended up finding another pair of Celestion Ditton 66 speakers in another city and am having them shipped to me. I already know what to expect when I go to listen to them. I also know I will get my money back.

So I never got to try anything new or different, but I know I would have to spend thousands to find a product today that is comparible with my vintage Ditton 66s.

For me the top consideration is efficiency or the ability to work with my current system.  . The next criteria has to be integration with my listening space.  For me that thins the choices and I would then pick the one that sounds the best  within my budget.  

If there was a speaker and amp combination that sounded better than speaker with my current low wattage amplifier I would have to consider it.  GaN amps might get me there I haven't heard one yet.