Kern 8x30 opinions (1 Viewer)

Has anyone ever looked through a Kern Aarau 8x30? Are they any good? No, i will not buy one, i'm just curious.

A couple of reviews on the usual suspects' pages :
http://binofan.home.att.net/kern8x30.htm
http://www.holgermerlitz.de/kern8x30.html

I've got an Kern military 8x30 from 1980. It's very well made, but optically mediocre. The eyepiece has short eye relief, about a 68 degree AFOV with goobs of off axis astigmatism. Deutsche Optics still sells the later Leica branded version of this binocular, which has a very cool mechanical design, but is optically unchanged except for being ruined by a non-removable laser filter. They also sell the Kern military 6x24, a lovely baby 6x30 made of solid brass. I like that one better and it's cheap, but they might have run out of coated specimens by now.

henry link said:

I've got an Kern military 8x30 from 1980. It's very well made, but optically mediocre. The eyepiece has short eye relief, about a 68 degree AFOV with goobs of off axis astigmatism. Deutsche Optics still sells the later Leica branded version of this binocular, which has a very cool mechanical design, but is optically unchanged except for being ruined by a non-removable laser filter. They also sell the Kern military 6x24, a lovely baby 6x30 made of solid brass. I like that one better and it's cheap, but they might have run out of coated specimens by now.

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Henry, I assume that model has no center focus? The military versions were individual focus with the purpose of waterproofing the porro design. It probably has a reticle in one barrel, I think. But I'm not sure whether all military models had one.
When I was a kid, I dreamed of the 7x50 Kern, which was then considered to be a very fine model. Kern also produced spotting scopes at that time. I was sometimes able to borrow one from the local birding society. It had three eyepieces on a very compact revolving device. The B&L version for their balscope was much bulkier.