2: the magazine has no objective standards

Arguable. SP does do technical tests.

But when have they ever been correlated with what one "actually" (???)
hears? An "objective" test is objective only if it correlates with valid
subjective tests. Otherwise it's meaningless. To the best of my knowledge,
Stereophile has never performed listening tests that might provide this
correlation (or show there was none). Stereophile's technical tests are
largely window dressing.

20+ years ago, when JA introduced cumulative decay spectra as a speaker
measurement, I urged him to hold off for a year or so, to do additional
listening tests in the hope they would reveal correlations between the
measurements and specific subjective aspects of the speaker's sound. This,
like every other suggestion I made to JA, was instantly rejected.

It's worth noting that, when I reviewed the AKG K1000 ear speakers, I ran a
waterfall plot that correlated with the 'phones' extreme midrange "honking".
JA's reaction was to ask me whether I'd run the tests properly.