I honestly do not think ASR are "cheapskates" or focus excessively on cheap for cheap’s sake. I think it is wholly misplaced faith in a few measurable parameters as representing musical sound quality. They love measuring parameters and creating charts and graphs (I understand the love of this... I used to be a scientist). But sound quality is the result of many dozens of variables... most of which they do not measure. The ear is an unbelievably sensitive listening device, especially when coupled with the mind. Measuring a few parameters of components tells little about how humans with hear the sound quality.
This is so basic to high end audio... like the first thing I learned back in the 1970’s when comparing specifications to what I heard. It became obvious the with the exception of a few specs that were useful in getting the big picture... watts per channel and current, for instance, and specifications like noise and many others are completely useless. But mostly it iis errors of omission.