... You also have to remember that when a professional reviewer offers an impression on one piece of equipment or another it is most often within the given context of their own system. Being familiar with the ins and out of my own system I would certainly be able to describe the sonic merits or shortcomings of one piece of gear over another.
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Tim, you bring a point I wanted to make as well. And that's the fact that many reviewers are essentially doing relative comparisons between new gear in for review and what was there previously. So if an amp sounded 'warmer' in that room, then it's likely to sound that way in other rooms.
So one of the things we all could do is remember that whether from a professional or just us hobbyist types, when we read a review of anything, the context in which it is done is highly relevant, and that more often than not, the evaluation is indeed relative (vs absolute).
However, comments on bass-bloat, extension, frequency harshness, etc. of speakers would be highly suspect, as more often than not, the room influences those to such a high degree, that where they are placed will improve or hurt those elements.
For instance, I agree with Rich's comments on that reviewers room, and would add the observation that the seats being back against the wall puts the listener in a high-pressure bass mode zone, which will make for very 'lumpy' or one note bass effects.
While I don't really know what the sound might be like in that room, I do have enough knowledge and experience to make pretty educated guesses about the possible macro effects based on the observable dimensions, placements and surfaces.
This is analogous to an experienced car nut looking at a picture of a car with an underinflated right-front tire. They could probably accurately predict that the vehicle will pull to the right, stop in much longer distances (and not in a straight line) and have much reduced cornering capability when taking left turns. All just from looking at a picture, and they'd be pretty much right.
