Onhwy61, For sure you can’t tell much from looking at pictures, but I recall a favored reviewer waxing eloquently about the spatial qualities of a DAC as heard on one of his systems the photos of which cast serious questions about either what he actually heard or whether or not he had other motivations for giving an ’outstanding review' and recommendation (actually the DAC is/was excellent). His speaker set up had the speakers close to a back wall, one of the speakers (typical multi driver boxes) had no side wall reflections issues and the other speaker was within one foot or so of an untreated sidewall. A very poor set up IMHO if your seeking to maximize stereo imaging. FWIW.
Some famous reviewers have atrocious listening rooms!
It’s almost sad, really. Some reviewers I’ve been reading for decades, when showing their rigs on YouTube, have absolutely horrible rooms. Weird shaped; too small w/o acoustic treatment; crap all over the place within the room or around the speakers; and on and on.
Had I known about the listening rooms they use to review gear in the past, I would not have placed such a value on what they were writing. I think reviewers should not just list the equipment they used in a given review, but be required to show their listening rooms, as well.
Turns out my listening room isn’t so bad, after all.