How do you choose your IR's?

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All of this is my opinion and nowhere near gospel!
1. Do you want this tone for your own edification or to fit well in a mix at volume?
2. Use "neutral" amp settings to try out IR's or you might pass up on IR's that would work great, except you dialed in your amp for a different flavor of IR.
3. Make a preset with multiple scenes dialed in for different IR's (after you've already picked a few), so you can quickly compare them.
4. Listen to them over multiple days with fresh ears....I can't tell you how many times I dialed in the "prefect tone" only to find out it was LESS than so the next day.
5. This really shouldn't be at the end, but you get what you pay for. LISTEN to your preset/scenes in the Mix. IF you're playing in a band the perfect tone is what makes the song/band sound best.
Bonus: Use the looper block to try different cabs, dial in tones, etc. as you can focus on tone, not your playing (Leon was the first person I saw mentioning it and it makes a HUGE difference.

the mix is always a totally different deal... that is my simple understanding. What sounds good to me playing alone, needs to be adjusted when playing with other musicians, and on a backing track for sure. A lot of times, I can just eq and cut frequencies. With the IRs, there is not a real good way to figure that out except by trying them out, that I know of. I am learning the characteristics of some of them, and I keep a spreadsheet of my notes on them. It is time consuming. Live playing is always an evolving sound, as I start with known good live presets, and the cover songs match up pretty well from Austin buddy's presets live gold, but I can't load every preset I own from collections... I have two of AB's collections and Fremen's collections and raw amps. I use them, but spent a lot of $ on them over time.