The lack of battery compartments in expensive basses is a deliberate and frustrating shortcut luthiers take, and it shows little respect for customers, especially customers who are willing to pay more to have better.
It's not just the hassle of finding your bass battery is dead, or having it fuzz out on you before it does, it is the hassle of needing a teeny screw driver with you where ever in the world you might be when you need to change it. Also, with most of these basses, there is some risk of stretching a wire too far when you change the battery and inadvertently doing something that is going to kill your bass until you have it repaired.
Like others, I often change the battery when it doesn't yet need it, luthiers pretty much force us to, but that's a DUMB solution. It's like buying a car with no gas gauge, and insisting that if you just pull over for gas every so often, you'll be fine.
Basses costing much less seem to be able to afford them, why not higher end basses?
I have one bass, a Nordstrand Nordy, that has a battery check light every time you plug in an instrument cable, but that is a function of the Audere preamp, not a Nordstrand perk. You still need a screw driver to change the battery because the luthier sees a battery compartment as an option he can charge more for.
If General Motors charged extra for cars that you didn't have to pop the hood to refuel, they'd have been out of business long ago.
I have tens of thousands of dollars invested in high end basses including a Fodera, 3 Fbasses, and a Nordy, and none of them have battery compartments. At least they all have a passive mode, but I'm looking forward to the day when one of them finally cares enough about their customers to make a battery compartment standard.
End of rant.
