I am not biased toward anything, I just know that for the sound character that I have searched for for many years the Pass designs seem to fit this sound the best out of what I have heard. And you are right when it gets up to that price area a difference of $50,000 does not guaranty better. But my point is that the reviewer should have stated that his reviews for for a certain price max and under and stated that there are better versions of Pass and Plinius designs out there that might be better than anything he had heard in that whole test by a far margin. i would think if I were to do a test like that I would set a price maximum and try to find the "reference" top level products up to the max price and if there were any that were not the best that particular company has to offer I would take note of that mentally and otherwise. I think for a audio reviewer it is a duty to notice and take note of things like this in a review as to not misinform potential customers of these companies of what they can get if they are looking for absolute reference price is no object audio products. I know that most or all of us here have our personal set limitations of how much we can spend on audio and keep everything else going and not be divorced and broke so most of this does not apply to us. I know I love my Pass amp and feel fortunate to be able to find one at a used/more affordable price and I might not ever see myself going up to the XA or XS level and that is fine with me because in my everyday life my X series does my music due diligence. I just think some reviewers don't realize that they have a duty to inform and educate people on products and when true reference products are called for in a review get true reference products and not entry level products facing reference products. That was all I was trying to say.