When choosing new Speakers, what matters most to you?

Ok, so if price is the same, I try to balance best sound quality with aesthetics and in a tie, the easiest speaker to position and move will win. We all know though that all things will never be equal. Ugly wont cut it in our home, impossible to move or position wont cut it either.

Judging by some of the system photos here on audiogon, its clear that aesthetics arent that importnat to some.

Cabinet,crossover and drivers that is why I own MAGICO.

Cabinet,crossover and drivers that is why I own QLN.

Also helped having the ability to demo them in my listening room with my kit.

Have a great day.

I Robot.

Bought a pair of speakers once that sounded great on demo, at least with what they were demoed with. Stupid me. If I had seen the measurements first, I would never have bought them. Got them home and no position, no toe-in, nothing would make them sound right with a wide range of music. Sometimes brilliant, sometimes just something wrong. Found out later that there was significant frequency response/directivity issues.

Learned my lesson. I never bought speakers again without having measurements even if that limited what I could buy. There are just too many things that can be done wrong in a speaker, driver resonance, port resonance, cabinet resonance, frequency response, distortion, distortion over volume, directivity issues, thermal compression, less than ideal cross-over design, etc. When listening to new speakers, there are so so many variables, that is hard enough to say "I like these", let alone pick up on the design flaws that may only become self evident with some music, and then being new speakers you think is is me, is it the room, is it the amp?

Speakers are one area where measurements are really critical. It is not going to tell you if you like it or not for the long time, but it can very much highlight flaws you may not encounter in early listening that you will eventually not be able to live with. At a more fundamental level, directivity plots will help you know how it will work out in your room, the range of toe-in you can use, even whether compared to your existing speakers they may be darker or brighter. Let's not forgot amplifier interaction as well.

When you write it down, you realize that buying speakers without any measurement is a really risky proposition.

One of my favorite brands is Vienna acoustics and they measure below average so nope, i couldn’t give a rats a$$ what they measure like as long as they sound good in my room with my gear.