What do "audiophiles" use to judge equipment?

Interesting question. I’ve had this very discussion with a coworker who is primarily equipment specification driven. He favors components with better specifications and measurements over sound. His system sounds really good, but it’s not a sound quality I prefer. I’m the opposite and look at equipment specifications after I’ve listened to the equipment. My current speakers were purchased after going to my local dealer to listen to another specific make and model. I preferred the sound (and design) after he recommended the speakers to me. The sound of the music is always the first priority to me. 
Regards.

Yes, I purchased

• Moon by Simaudio 280D DAC.  It was a significant upgrade from my Node 2i
• Rega P8 (previously owned Dual 515CS and Rega RP 1

My ears were pleased and still are...

I would look for a person with no skin in the game who has been
into stereo gear a long time and has hearing that is very good
and become friends. This guy is hard to find.

He may the guy who walks into a store and points out that the
speakers are wired out of phase.
 
I fear you may have been reading these forums too long.
My mentor told me many times- The stuff you read on line
is wrong over 50% of the time.

How are your divining skills?

Not sounding so simple? 

Specs provide valuable information required to make an informed purchase.  Without specs how would you know which speaker wire is long enough?
Specs can also be misleading and unimportant.  Discerning which spec is truly important takes either a lot of trial and a LOT of error or learning from the resources available.
I suspect that a lot of the people on this and other related forums do read music and trust their own ears and the ears of the more experienced.
To me the hobby is the journey not the destination.  It can always sound better,  there is always a new artist their is always information that I'm not aware of.

There you will find repeatedly stated the only two specs worth consideration are speaker sensitivity and phono cartridge output.

How anyone can utter such foolishness and also be taken seriously by even the few on this forum is beyond reasonable comprehension. Using this logic Robert Harley’s book should have been reduced from 596 pages to a paragraph or two.

When I inquired with Keith Herron a few years ago about matching his wonderful VTSP-360 preamp with my existing amp the very first question he asked was about my amp’s input impedance. Why would Keith have been the slightest bit concerned about such a meaningless spec? He apparently knows far less than other posters on this forum.

And why is Kevin Hayes at VAC so obsessed with the performance of his output transformers, putting tons of effort into his current delivery specs and optimizing power delivery into higher and lower impedance speakers? How misguided he must be.

Why does John DeVore believe that the entire load the speaker presents to an amp matters more than speaker sensitivity? He must be confused as well. I really don’t know how these guys ever managed to be so successful while being focused on specs that don’t matter at all.