It's a simple matter of you needing to come to terms with the fact that you MUST try before you buy. Just as you said, everything is subjective as it is in food. The only thing you should take away from reviews are things like build quality. BUT even then build quality is subjective because some people are ham-handed morons who deal with their equipment like it's something you should be able to toss around like a bat and ball. People always complained about the Sony MDR-V700's cracking at the swivel points, and it took 20 years for mine to develop a stress crack and that only happened because my kids kept knocking them off my desk--in my loving hands they were never going to crack.
Unfortunately, there are tons of "audiophiles" who aren't actually looking for what sounds good to them because they are so blinded by the idea of equipment that is mathematically or electronically perfect, which is also a faulty concept because our hearing is all different and equipment with flat response will still fail us due to peaks and valleys in our own hearing--a flat response at 3kHz becomes a low spot due to our damaged hearing at 3kHz or similar.
Pioneer SE-A1000, and I have a large head.