i hear you on the curiosity! i'm always curious about new gear, and love the experience of trying new stuff almost as much as the music itself. so i unfortunately always on the crazy train of new stuff in to try while old stuff either stays if it resonates strongly, or out to fund the new stuff haha.
this is just my opinion, and i'm a skeptical ahole by nature, but i humbly believe most reviewers are either doing it to make money, or to try new stuff themselves, and hence just churn out mostly shallow, inoffensive check the boxes reviews that please the vendors so they get more stuff to try. i know that's harsh, and not wholly true, there are some honest good people trying their best to help their fellow hobbyists. but IMO they're far and few in between. so i put very little stock in them, other than to visually see the product get some top level info when i want to listen vs read. forums are good when you find a few trusted voices that you can rely on. those members i like to read as i can triangulate my own preferences to theirs, to give me an idea how a potential product might work for me. but mostly it's just noise to me. i mean no offense to anyone here and out on the interwebs, i'm just being honest. and to the ones that really try to help the community, thank you all. again, i'm just an old skeptic that's becoming a "get off my lawn" type.