Some famous reviewers have atrocious listening rooms!

You cannot hear how a room sounds by looking at pictures of the room.

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.

always get info, if possible, on a reviewers listening room -- it is important context to their review output

the beloved herb reichert for instance... steve guttenberg has well documented herb’s apartment and the set up in his yt vids... it is basically semi nearfield listening with quite a lot of hard/reflective surfaces... that is important to know when reading herb’s words on gear...

In my new book, "The Lucky Audiophile - Anecdotes from High End Audio" (Amazon) I share many pictures of my different listening rooms and equipment over the years.

Yes, the room makes a difference to the quality of sound and resolution, but I think critical listening skills and the ability to describe what you hear are more important. Like Herb and his room. Or REG and Myles Astor and their rooms.