Shouldn't amp reviews employ multiple speakers?

No, your not missing anything. You are dead right! Speaker/amp/room combo is the most important and can make or break a system.

Yep, but it isn't practical to have several pairs of speakers with the same room acoustics - esecially when dealing with 200+ lb speakers.

But then you can go farther and dispute the fact that an amp review should be tried with several preamps, several sources, several cables, several rooms, and several reviewers. So then, do they really need to try out more than one pair of speakers? haha

My simple answer is that I read magazine reviews for entertainment. If I really want to know how something sounds, I buy it and try it in my own system. That's the best kind of answer for me.

Yup!..In the same way that reviewers use different amps for a particular speaker..the same should be true of speakers under review employing a variety of amps..

The three responses above confront the issue well. Audio products are designed and voiced with a system of specific components. Assessing any piece of electronics or transducer without realizing the importance of system matching, I find not only unfair, but unproductive.

I have read threads from very knowledgeable 'philes making what they term "true comparisons" of items (from cartridges to amps to speakers), by vitrue of inserting component B into "identical system" of component A. Otherwise stated, amp A vs. amp B in a system which amp A performs well in. Findings may prove amp B lacks some refinement or musicality and susequently, is deemed an inferior product.

Paraphrasing Aball, any and all products may improve or worsen within the company of strangers. That is why I continue to extract the utmost from the system I own, tweaking until no more red can be squeezed from the turnip.

Well -- all the reviewers I know buy their own gear, plus many of them are married and their spouses may not like to see three pairs of different types of speakers in the listening room.

Personally, I have two 2-channel systems set up in two different rooms with different components and when I think there may be an equipment bias issue, I sometimes put the review component into each system to see how the results compare. Not all reviewers have that luxury, however.

As Aball notes, there are just too many combinations of components, wires, and speakers for any reviewer to try them all. We do the best we can with the gear that is available to us.

And I notice that Aball himself has done three amp reviews here, for Audiogon, and it appears that he used those amps with only one set of speakers. Whadayaknow!