Some famous reviewers have atrocious listening rooms!

I’m not as concerned about reviewer’s rooms as many others here.

Yes, of course room acoustics affect speaker performance. It’s not for nothing room EQ is all the rage these days. However...I’m less in to hand-wringing over the photos of reviewers rooms for these reason:

Per the work of Floyd Toole and others, speaker room interactions are more unreliable in the bass, but nonetheless Toole has explained that the emphasis on room acoustics is sometimes overstated. This is because our brains have evolved to "listen through" the acoustics of a room to perceive the direct character of a sound source. That’s why we generally easily identify the character of people’s voices in a vast array of real-iife acoustic scenarios. If the surrounding acoustic information so baffled our brains that sources had no defining reliable characteristics, our hearing wouldn’t have been of much use.

I have found this to be true in my own experience auditioning speakers. I’m a "speaker nut" and when I’m on a speaker hunt my auditioning is wide-ranging (even traveling to hear different speakers). Through careful listener positioning - taking various positions to listen, careful speaker placement, I’ve easily been able to get the gist of a speaker’s character in pretty much every room. I have NEVER been surprised by the sound of a speaker I heard in one room, when I heard it in another. I mean, I even auditioned the Harbeth speakers in a room that was literally a gigantic open warehouse room, and yet I simply placed my listening position and speaker arrangement as I have in my 15 ’ x 13’ room at home...and I heard the same essential sound as I heard when I got the speakers in to my room.

So it is quite possible to get a good take on speakers in a variety of different rooms.

It reminds me of the time I heard MBL 101 speakers which I’d become obsessed with. I was able to hear them at a TAS reviewer’s home who had a notoriously, hilariously tiny listening room. I mean, closet-sized with BIG MBL omnis. It was the BEST I have ever heard those things sound. Absolutely incredible. And the descriptions he gave in his MLB reviews were right on regarding the pluses and minuses of that speaker.

Finally, I don’t just take some single review as gospel. Like many, I think, I tend to gain a level of trust with a reviewer insofar has I’ve noted he/she is listening and noticing things I care about sonically. And insofar as his descriptions of speakers I am familiar with have been accurate. And further, I triangulate the impressions with what other reviewers have written, and what other audiophiles have reported.

Very often these converge quite nicely.

So for instance I have found Fremer to be quite accurate in his descriptions of speakers I’ve owned or have auditioned. Even Herb Reichert has been extremely accurate to what I’ve heard. For instance his comparison of Harbeth with Joseph Audio speakers, both of which I’ve owned, got right to the gist of exactly the character differences I heard.

Finally, when it comes to correlating what reviewers write about speakers, for instance in Stereophile, while you can always find embarrassing moments of a mismatch with the measurements, generally speaking I’ve noticed that the reviews tend to track fairly well with what JA measures. Very often certain characteristics cited by the reviewer show up in the measurements. (Fremer is actually pretty good there too).

A good reviewer may not describe a speaker as precisely as measurements, but they can often give the gist of "what it actually sounds like" quite well. IMO.

@cd318 

Reviewers exist primarily to promote product.

Really?   I used to review a bit, and have known many audio reviewers.  I can't think of a single one who thinks of themselves that way, or who approach their reviewing just to promote a product.

I can hardly think of a single review which came close to describing what I later heard in person.

Maybe you weren't terribly good at, or didn't put much effort in to weeding through reviews.  There isn't a speaker I've owned or had in my house for which I haven't seen a quite accurate review. 

The great majority of products that received glowing reviews turned out to be crushing disappointments in real life. [fully loaded Linn/Naim six pack was shockingly bad when I'd been expecting near perfection]

Ah, looks like you were maybe to high in your expectations regarding reviews.

Time and time again I reminded myself to never again trust ANY reviews.

It's the oldest adage in audio but you really do have to listen for yourself.

Why did you need reminding?  Pretty much all reviewers, and most audiophiles, would tell you to listen for yourself.  Generally it makes sense to use reviews to narrow down speakers you would be interested in auditioning.  They point you in some directions.  Reviews normally aren't substitutes for auditions.

Though I can think of at least one speaker that I bought based on a review or two, since I could not audition it anywhere.  Though I already had experience with the brand and I didn't just expect to love it because I read some good reviews.  I'd sell it if I didn't like it.  It was an excellent speaker, sounded mostly as it was described in the reviews.

curtdr

Yes the "underused dedicated home theater" has been a theme that has often cropped up in the dedicated home theater forums (e.g. AVSForum).  One really should go in with a realistic idea of how many people will likely use the theater and how often.

In my case though I created a projection based home theater system, I didn't want a dedicated room that felt separated from the rest of the house.   I merged it my two channel listening room, which is the front living room of the house on the main floor.  It's a high performance room in which dark curtains can be pulled all around the room to cut screen reflections for a very dynamic, big image and immersion.  But it is bright and cheery by day, eminently accessible and comfy, and so my family is often in there and I used it every day, whether for reading, listening to music, watching movies or TV etc.    I didn't go with awkward looking home theater chairs in such a room, but had a huge sectional sofa custom-built, which has come in handy as I've had many guests watch sports and movies with me there.

Once you have a room that feels like you are going off in to some other dark pit to watch movies, it can actually feel to some people more of a barrier.

bipod72

I see no reason to denigrate how anyone else enjoys music, be it their choice of room furnishing, single chair or whatever.

If that is the way an individual likes to focus on listening to music, how could that be "insulting" to the music?

One could just as well say that people who spend a lot of time on a place like audiogon discussing gear are in to the gear, not listening to music.

But that would no more be necessarily true than seeing someone's set up which has lots of gear.  This forum has a whole section devoted to people showing off pictures of their gear.