Hi Folks! Newbie here looking to learn a bit more about what can really be gleaned from certain speaker specs. Up front I will just say that I know you can only get so much from a spec sheet and won't really know until you actually hear the speaker in your own system. That said, there is definitely a use to narrowing the field of potential audition candidates via the specs, yes? We can only test so many speakers (reasonably) for any given purchase and if the specs don't help then I feel like I would more or less be choosing speakers at random to try out.
A couple examples of two similarly priced speakers:
Monitor Audio Silver 200
89 dB, 8 ohm, 38 Hz-35kHz, 1" tweeter, two 5.25" woofers, crossover at 700Hz and 2.9kHz
Tannoy Revolution XT 6f
90 dB, 8 ohm, 38 Hz-32kHz, 1" tweeter, two 6" woofers, crossover at 250Hz and 1.8kHz
Sensitivity and resistance are the easy ones. Assuming the room configuration and equipment are the same: I am more wondering about how much we can take away from the frequency range and woofer sizes to make any general statements about them. In theory, they can both produce the same low end frequency, but I imagine the size of the woofer will play a big role in the character of the bass? I don't know how to evaluate crossover points either, what do they actually mean in terms of what you hear? The Tannoy in this comparison is a slightly larger volume cabinet as well, but bigger doesn't always mean better.
Basically, how can we leverage the information we get on a spec sheet to make some sort of educated guess as to whether a speaker is worth giving a go or not?