It has nothing really to do with cost but rather design. But I have debated this with reviewers before. However, there are some politics involved with reviewing gear that can't be avoided. My system is in a certain price range - the fact that it may sound better than many $100,000 systems is totally irrelevant because the manufacture of an $80,000 CD player is not going to give me their player because the review won't be taken seriously amongst those people who own half million dollar stereos. Further, it is highly unlikely that I would purchase the reviewed product given my budget so they also can't make a sale.

Personally, I am not all that interested in reviewing $50k pieces because they're probably all very good but who is reading? The rich guys which are fewer in numbers and the ones who are audiophiles with that kind of money are not buying based on reviews.

The budget stuff is more interesting to me to see what can be done for the average person (me) and is somewhat affordable (sanely priced). I bet this generates more readers because it is the kind of stuff in the $2-8k range where people are upgrading their small systems to that sort of per piece price point and probably ending their travel there.