I'm looking at specs for speakers in trying to decide which ones to audition.....which do I pay the most attention to. I vaguely remember reading (I'll mess this up, bear with me) that three of the most important are driver diameter , crossover and power handling....The crossover should be as low as possible in a two way so that the dispersion is greater for the woofer that has to handle the upper range which is the toughest to "spread out". A speaker w/ crossover at 2K from a 1" dome to a 6 " woofer has more dispersion than the same tweeter crossed at 3k to an 8". The problem arises when you cross too low and put too much of a demand on the tweeter and it "blows" at higher volumes. So I'm guessing that a 1" dome crossed at 1.5K to a 6" woofer and can handle 100 watts continuous must be a pretty darn high quality unit....it deserves a listen.... even if the frequency response is less than the ideal and is say 38-17k (+-3db) as opposed to 30-20K (+-3db) (which my dog might like better)
I know I messed it up...so what else is important and in what order...any references I could find on line would be helpful.

IMO, what sounds good to you is far more important than any spec. I would not necessarily exclude any speaker that interests you merely on specs.

Second that! Most speaker specification measurements are are not standardized in any useful way and the ones provided often tell you nothing about the sound, distortion or smoothness.

I just looked at half a dozen two-way systems ranging from the BB house brand to some expensive stuff- all had dome tweeters of 3/4 or 1" and mid/woofers of 5 to 6.5". Crossover points were from 2.4 kHz to 3 kHz. Frequency responses were broadly similar but often stated with out reference to +/- or to the half power point. Efficiency varied only 3dB. Some very expensive brands give no response figures or polar plots.

Good reviews will provide a measurement of dispersion, poorer ones will mention it subjectively, but specs rarely speak to it.

In the ideal world a smaller tweeter will have better off axis response than a larger one, but have less performance at lower frequencies. Is a 3/4" dome going to sound better off axis than a 1"? Not in the real world.

Horn tweeters can and often do have a better horizontal response than domes. Ribbons take you into another realm.

To test dispersion move around. You can usually hear the difference.

Rreally good thorough specs can be quite useful, but are almost universally not available from the speaker manufacturer. You can find good measurements in reviews from time to time though. But listening really is the best way to get a feel for what you prefer, IMO. Good thorough specs can be a useful rough guide and can provide some interesting insights, but I would not buy speakers this way even with very thorough specs, and anyway it's hard to get these kinds of specs for pretty much anything so...

I get the feeling that speaker specs. may be as much hype and advertisement as anything for a particular product. True meaningful specs. than may beyond the understanding of the average consumer (like me) taking a degree in engineering or at least a keen interest coupled with lots of experience to really understand and apply......

I get the feeling that speaker specs. may be as much hype and advertisement as anything for a particular product. True meaningful specs. than may beyond the understanding of the average consumer (like me) taking a degree in engineering or at least a keen interest coupled with lots of experience to really understand and apply......

Yes and no.

Yes, some of the specs and information can be quite technical.

No, inasmuch as the bottom line is quite simple - buy what sounds good to you.

It takes no technical understanding to buy what sounds good, only dedication to auditioning a number of examples so you know the possibilities.