My understanding is that most reviewers receive review units that they eventually have to send back to the company. So when it comes time to make comparisons, they're probably only able to A-B what they currently have lying around from other companies (or what's in their own personal collection). I wouldn't want to be throwing out subjective comparisons to headphones I haven't heard in years unless I had a very systematic/objective resource to back up my memory (e.g. Crinacle has his ranking and measurements).