Subjective listening descriptions are critical, but most people offer them without a lot of relevant details (room acoustics, associated equipment, source quality, etc.). Including those variables makes it possible for others to gauge whether a reported quality might be something they’d also experience. When they are not included, the reports are only reliable as the expression of someone’s feelings masquerading as an objective report.
In other words, measurements on their own may be highly problematic as a guide to the sound, but the solution isn’t just subjective listening reports -- those too can be worthless without some kind of report about other factors.
