To Patudo, I bought in 1984ish Zeiss 1040B made in West Germany binos. They were all I had till the summer of 2020. I still own them, will not sell them, they are great. I also bought at the same time Leitz Trinovid 10x40BA. My sister still has those, my BIL and I use them to go birding whenever I get to Baltimore. They to are great, and Im glad I still get to use them. I bought both as the best of the day, after a shootout with 2 of the better known outdoor writers at the time, who were friends, and brought several binos to the party to try. Indeed mechanically both were and are still great. Your point about modern glass and coatings is partly correct, but then theres optical features like FOV, flat field (if thats your thing), eye relief, indeed waterproofing, to. My ELs are every bit as nice, and better tools. Hopefully you're not saying optics to the side, modern binos are not the equal mechanically, durability-wise, of those of comparable quality levels?
dries1, This, "Do some folks not understand consistency of craftsmanship is not the same as saying, I would rather have a binocular made 30 years ago." I'm not quite sure what youre trying to say, sorry. We need to distinguish, as it doesn't seem you've done, between best quality and lesser Q, binos made at a price for mass consumption. We should not conflate these two. If youre second sentence is correct, "more binos are being made today," we need to think about return rate, as distinct from # returned. Ive written about this in other places here. CAD, CAM, robotics, maybe more importantly TQM, JIT, (can only happen built on a TQM system), assure more reliable quality... depending on the level of quality desired. Cheaply made stuff, by design is doomed to fail early. The sky isnt falling for the brands/models I listed above. Indeed there may be more returned today, do to higher volume made. But whats the % return compared to total production? We dont know. Those are proprietary numbers. I'd bet the best of the best has lower rates today, in spite of BF teeth gnashing. Jan was right a couple days ago saying something, and I'll paraphrase, "A purchaser of a great bino will influence 10 people to buy, the purchaser of a lemon will complain and effect the choice of a hundred." Thats a bad job on the quote, sorry Jan, but the belief in that, comes directly from the culture of Total Quality Management (a dated term as it and am I, Im sure). For more see below.
Paultricounty, "Nobody wanted a Japanese car in the 70s." Well, no, thats not zactly correct. I was born in 1944. Went to the local five and dime as a kid and got cheaply made tin toys from Japan that were made from the scrap/detritus of WWII, as the only means of generating revenue for the country as it worked to rebuild. I distinctly remember my parent bemoaning MIJ as cheap crap that nobody should buy. That was the '50s and '60's. Ironically those comments I grew up with sound very similar to what is being said here about MIC. But back to your above. Things changed there. Taught by Joe Juran, Edwards Deming, Frank Gryna, American Quality engineers invited by MacArthur's occupational government, the Japanese rebuilt infrastructure with then brand new technology. More importantly, essentially starting from scratch, they also rebuilt the culture within their manufacturing businesses. CEOs to janitors were taught a culture of making things right the first time, to minimize internal failure costs and win over customers. By the mid/later 1970s Japan auto makers were eating Detroit's lunch, had taken over consumer electronics and were chewing away on optics. In 1981, I was one of the US Quality management execs who schlepped to Japan to try and figure out what was happening and how to fix it. I'll never forget, sitting in a meeting with Nippon Oils and Fats, as I recall then owner of Nissan and several other industrial businesses, somewhat cowed by the fact I was a nobody, and the heads of that company were willing to talk with me. They said something like, "we're a little puzzled, why you're here. You taught us, now you want us to teach you.... OK, thank you," and they did. I visited Seiko watch, saw, a fully automated, mechanical watch, production line, with no human hands interventing. How's that for irony? I went to the Yodobashi Camera shop and bought my Nikon's in Tokyo. What a store! Multiple floors of stuff superbly made. Innovative hi fis, to optics, and all coming to the US....
Read WJCs latest to get a sense of who's making what for whom, whatever the brand/model. Welcome to globalization, folks. Ironically the world I grew up in cast a value, a label, an attitude, on MIJ, maybe relating to WWII events, maybe relating to those tin toys they sold and we bought as the Japanese fought to rebuild. Japan had to fight for years to rebuild attitudes and valuation of MIJ. Beliefs have momentum. It feels like even to today somehow MIE for optics carries prestige over MIJ and we're willing to pay for the soft attribute of made in Germany, or made in Austria. I agree much of whats coming from China is being made for a price, where best quality cant exist. But we do know who's making our iPhones, laptops, desk tops, TVs, right?
Trouble was, the media influence (not to mention the educational system) and low information voters blew that backbone to pieces. Way too many woke mealy mouths in the USA today, sadly. Hope for (pray for) change in 2022.