Swarovski Sale? (1 Viewer)

karmantra said:

65th Anniversary Sale--extends to their spotting scopes as well. Apparently offered at most authorized Swaro dealers. Might be a bit of a response to blunt the impact of the future release of the new Zeiss SF model!

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Samandag said:

No big sales in 56s, Jan ?

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jgraider said:

Price is indeed an issue to probably 90% of prospective buyers on the planet I would think.

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brocknroller said:

I seriously question if anybody really "needs" top quality optics. From my experience at the Birdwatching Digest-sponsored "Big Sits," the birder who each year correctly identifies the most birds has the least expensive binoculars. Why? Because he has the best ear for bird songs, he is the best a mimicking birds to get them out of the woods and into the open, and when they appear, he is the best at identifying their field markings. He owns a humble but competent $200 Pentax 8x36 NV, and he is the envy (NV) of his fellow bird club members who own expensive Swaro SLCs and ELs.

I'd like to conduct a double blind test with an expert birder using a cheapo Nikon 7x35 Aculon and a $2K+ Leica 7x42 Ubervid (or EDG or SLCneu) and find out if he/she really can ID birds better with an alpha than with the Aculon under sunny skies. Get a statistician to calculate how much better and see if the cost warrants the better ID performance. I can take a not so wild guess that it would not, not even close.

Are the alphas better built? Of course. Are the optics better? I would certainly hope so, but $2K better? Well, that's between you, your mate and your wallet. But the point is, nobody "needs" an alpha anymore than anybody needs a Mercedes.

Here's another test I call the Piaget Effect. It's a bit sneaky, but it would be interesting to try. Let's say someone replaced the green armoring on the 8x32 Sightron II with gray armoring and put a Zeiss blue shield on it and then handed them out free to hunting guides, telling them, this is Zeiss's latest and greatest, an 8x32 SF. Just in case the hunting guides catch on, let's make them confederates in the ruse. So they start using the new faux 8x32 SFs, and their duckling hunters take a look through them. How much you want to bet that right after the hunt or even before it's over, the hunters are on their cell phones ordering an 8x32 SF from their Zeiss dealer?

This is not a put down of hunters, the same thing would likely happen at a birding event if Steve Ingraham had a faux 8x32 SF. The phone at Zeiss dealers would be ringing off the hook.

Why? (I'm glad you keep asking questions ). Partly human nature, partly Madison Ave. Everybody wants to own "the best." If that weren't true, we'd all be driving Honda Civics, realizing that spending more for a car is simply throwing money out the window.

Brock

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brocknroller said:

Are the alphas better built? Of course. Are the optics better? I would certainly hope so, but $2K better? Well, that's between you, your mate and your wallet. But the point is, nobody "needs" an alpha anymore than anybody needs a Mercedes.

Here's another test I call the Piaget Effect. It's a bit sneaky, but it would be interesting to try. Let's say someone replaced the green armoring on the 8x32 Sightron II with gray armoring and put a Zeiss blue shield on it and then handed them out free to hunting guides, telling them, this is Zeiss's latest and greatest, an 8x32 SF. Just in case the hunting guides catch on, let's make them confederates in the ruse. So they start using the new faux 8x32 SFs, and their duckling hunters take a look through them. How much you want to bet that right after the hunt or even before it's over, the hunters are on their cell phones ordering an 8x32 SF from their Zeiss dealer?

This is not a put down of hunters, the same thing would likely happen at a birding event if Steve Ingraham had a faux 8x32 SF. The phone at Zeiss dealers would be ringing off the hook.

Why? (I'm glad you keep asking questions ). Partly human nature, partly Madison Ave. Everybody wants to own "the best." If that weren't true, we'd all be driving Honda Civics, realizing that spending more for a car is simply throwing money out the window.

Brock

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Troubador said:

Its an interesting scenario Brock but just because there is a grain of truth in it that doesn't mean its the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

In a way Swarovski has already done this experiment with the CL 8x30. Its all dressed up in Swaro finery but although its a nice instrument it was quickly found out that it really isn't optically up to the standards of an EL. So I am not at all convinced that we are all fooled by the badge and the appearance of a sub-alpha into believing that it has alpha qualities.

And your closing remark about 'simply throwing money out of window' rests on a reductionist assumption (also explored on the Kowa thread) that spending money on anything but utility is foolish.

But measuring utility is difficult because different folks put different values on different aspects of a product. And then there is the age-old question of how good is good enough? Its an impossible question to give an answer that will satisfy everybody. Our Skoda combi has a trunk that is larger than a BMW 3 series or Mercedes C-class and so for us, utility-wise it trumps those two aspirational and prestigious models. But as you know me and my lady take the aspirational route with bins and have Zeiss and Leica. And here is the point. Your 'simply throwing money out of the window' is, I feel, missing the point because 'pleasure of ownership' isn't simple. The idea that when we buy a car, or pair of bins or a mobile phone, we simply want to drive somewhere, look at something or call someone, is too simple. We are buying something that makes us feel good about our purchase and about our ownership of it. That pleasure of ownership may indeed be confined to the basic job the item needs to do, but we may value other things much more highly for the hard-to-define pleasure we get from owning them.

And from another angle Bryce is dead right. We recently stalked to within a very close distance to a female European Otter and her two cubs, and watched them in crystal clear sea water as they played and foraged. We would have enjoyed them through any pair of bins that were to hand.

Lee

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ceasar said:

Lee,

I don't want to get too far off the subject here but I think it is worth pointing out once more that Swarovski never intended the CLs to come up to the standards of the ELs. They were brought out to replace the 8x30 SLC which was getting long in the tooth and costly to make. Swarovski also threw a 10 x30 CL into the mix.

Bob

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jan van daalen said:

Point taken, but when your credo is to improve the best.........

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ceasar said:

If you are questioning whether or not they have done so the people who have the new Swarovison versions of the ELs will almost certainly argue that they have.

Bob

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jan van daalen said:

Absolutely!!!

But could we consider an CL 30 line Swarovski worthy. Is this model a prove of improving the best? IMHO not.

Jan

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