Some famous reviewers have atrocious listening rooms!

I recently watched a video on reviewing loudspeakers. In it an elaborate test of different listener groups reliability was conducted. Trained Listeners were by far the most reliable. Next, a group of Audio Retailers. Professional Audio Reviewers were third, but with about one-fifth the reliability of the Trained Listeners.

‘The study was done so that the participants had to rank various speakers. Those listeners that were more reliable more consistently ranked the speakers. So they didn’t rank speaker A high one minute, then ranked it low later on.

Professional Audio Reviewers might have skills independent of listening skills.

@jjss49 You can see the full presentation on YouTube - “Reviewing Loudspeakers: Mesurements and Listening Tests”. The tests were conducted at Harmon, where factors such as volume were controlled. I don’t recall much detail in how they trained the Trained Listeners.