Owlbarred
Well-known member
Well said. You are not alone, that's for sure. In the past 75 years, there have been countless scientific psychological studies (and entire books) related to misguided perception of superiority of premium (alpha) products based on price alone. Google The Psychology of Pricing for a quick sampling. Amazon has a plethora of books on the topic. That many associate higher price with higher quality, whether deserved or not, is well known.I strongly suspect I know the answer to this but can anyone else opine on whether there is a psychological joy, security or satisfaction to owning the very best alphas? The main reason I'm considering getting the very best is I always feel like something is missing with my near-alphas. I feel overly aware that they're not the best binoculars available, and as a result I'm incompletely satisfied with them. I want those feelings to be gone. I just want to know I have the best, that even if my binoculars are imperfect they couldn't be any better, and that no one is getting thrills I'm missing out on.
Does this apply to alpha binoculars? Depends on whom you ask and many other variables (income, brand loyalty, collector vs. user, primary habitat/setting used in... ad infinitum). After 20 years of using Swarovski EL and SV, my answer is that they were a bargain.
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