black crow
Well-known member
That's a pretty cool idea. I can research that myself. I'll find a home for them where they can live on. Thanks for a great suggestion.
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Zen Ray FB (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter scott63
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NDhunter
Experienced observer
I think those ideas are very good. I am starting out my own grandchildren with binoculars once
they reach the age of 5. It is too bad Zen Ray has gone out of business.
There are many new sellers of binoculars, and there will be others that will meet the same fate.
If warranty is important, that is a consideration.
I do know ZenRay was a paid banner advertiser on this site.
Now that they are defunct, this subforum could be dropped.
Jerry
they reach the age of 5. It is too bad Zen Ray has gone out of business.
There are many new sellers of binoculars, and there will be others that will meet the same fate.
If warranty is important, that is a consideration.
I do know ZenRay was a paid banner advertiser on this site.
Now that they are defunct, this subforum could be dropped.
Jerry
black crow
Well-known member
I would think we will make room for another brand if someone ever notices lol. I expect this subforum to go anytime actually. So before it does I want to say that my Zen Ray 7x36 has one of the most beautiful views of any pair of binoculars I own. I had them out today and was looking at the mountain side across the valley. As we are getting near the High Desert that side of the valleys mountain side is grass almost to the top at about 3500 ft. It's just starting to green up a tad and in the sun at about 4 or 5 miles distance the view in those Zens with that 477 ft FOV was just beautiful. I fell in love with them all over again. They really had a good run and made some fine optics IMO. I"ve owned the 9x36 also and that was another good one. I'll be sad if my Zens break down. Not many other roof binoculars have that large of a fov. I'll have to spring for that Japanese Nikon Porro 8x30
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Chosun Juan
Given to Fly
Why on earth would this sub forum be dropped !?!! :brains:
Zen-Ray may be defunct temporarily (permanently?) , and have disappeared as paid banner advertisements, but newsflash! Zen products live on in the field as well as ever as BC has reminded us :t:
The guts of the Zens also live on in other brands such as the Bushnell Legend M.
For owners of original Zens though, congratulations - you are now the proud owner of a classic !! o
Chosun :gh:
Zen-Ray may be defunct temporarily (permanently?) , and have disappeared as paid banner advertisements, but newsflash! Zen products live on in the field as well as ever as BC has reminded us :t:
The guts of the Zens also live on in other brands such as the Bushnell Legend M.
For owners of original Zens though, congratulations - you are now the proud owner of a classic !! o
Chosun :gh:
David in NC
Well-known member
Why on earth would this sub forum be dropped !?!! :brains:
Zen-Ray may be defunct temporarily (permanently?) , and have disappeared as paid banner advertisements, but newsflash! Zen products live on in the field as well as ever as BC has reminded us :t:
The guts of the Zens also live on in other brands such as the Bushnell Legend M.
For owners of original Zens though, congratulations - you are now the proud owner of a classic !! o
Chosun :gh:
I have to agree-I'm pretty down on them AS A HOLE but I can't imagine closing out the subforum here for current owners and potential future owners. Heck I still have gun and knife magazines from the 90s in case I want to go back and look up reviews (although I have went through two "purges" over the years on these.)
With so many ZR binos out there in the world the Bird Forum team has no plans to close this subforum.
Lee
Steve C
Well-known member
We need to step back here and think about Zen Ray for a minute. For the record, I am fully in support of the above comments by Chosun Juan. This is my opinion, and may well be viewed as being worth what I got paid for it. I do not for a minute think that we would see the fantastic improvement in the upper mid tier binoculars without Charles from Zen Ray hitting the Hornet’s Nest with his stick. His vision was that there was a pressing need for good, serious, field worthy binoculars at an affordable price level. As he saw it, there were alphas then there was mostly junk. His vision was to close that gap. I further do not think we would have nearly as many serious sub $1K and $500 binoculars as we have now without the push from Zen Ray and the buzz that was created. Yes there were other companies involved in the push, but ZR seems to be the topic here.
He accomplished the large part of his vision with the second generation ZRS (Summit) and the subsequent ZEN ED and ZEN Prime series binoculars. He took an opportunity that he saw and ran with it. Good for him. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. He took the risk. As I have said before, he ran into trouble by biting off more than he could chew too quickly. He did in fact illustrate quite clearly that a good field worthy binocular, one that would show you what was there to be seen, without spending upwards of $2,000 was a realistic target. He introduced binoculars that started the trend of improvement in the upper mid tier. I do not think for a minute we would see things like the Zeiss Terra and Conquest, Nikon Monarch 7 and Monarch HG, the Vortex Razor, or the new Leica Trinovids without the push Zen Ray was involved in starting those few years ago. Maven, GPO, Tract, among other new companies I missed, will continue that push. We will all benefit from that.
I am glad to see Troubador, apparently speaking from his role as Moderator, standing firm on the sub forum.
He accomplished the large part of his vision with the second generation ZRS (Summit) and the subsequent ZEN ED and ZEN Prime series binoculars. He took an opportunity that he saw and ran with it. Good for him. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. He took the risk. As I have said before, he ran into trouble by biting off more than he could chew too quickly. He did in fact illustrate quite clearly that a good field worthy binocular, one that would show you what was there to be seen, without spending upwards of $2,000 was a realistic target. He introduced binoculars that started the trend of improvement in the upper mid tier. I do not think for a minute we would see things like the Zeiss Terra and Conquest, Nikon Monarch 7 and Monarch HG, the Vortex Razor, or the new Leica Trinovids without the push Zen Ray was involved in starting those few years ago. Maven, GPO, Tract, among other new companies I missed, will continue that push. We will all benefit from that.
I am glad to see Troubador, apparently speaking from his role as Moderator, standing firm on the sub forum.
Yes and BTW I double-checked with BF management and the feeling there is as I reported in my last post. And with someone like Charles you can't rule out him starting up another venture.
And a nice summary Steve.
Lee
Very good post. Agree 100%. The choice in mid-range glass the last couple years has been great.
I agree with SteveC's post for the most part. However, it's one thing to take a chance and have it not work out so well. I don't begrudge Charles for that. What I do find bush league is his total lack of communication, both on this forum and evidently the social media. There's no excuse for leaving his customers hanging, trying to figure out WTH is going on.
NDhunter
Experienced observer
That is the point I was also making. In the past year, 90% of the posts on
the Zenray forum were all about service complaints.
Don't forget about that. For those owners in that position, all is not well, but very bad.
Jerry
jape
Well-known member
heartache, depression, insecurity are valid excuses in my book.
Kammerdiner
Well-known member
I'm one of those who are stuck with a dead Zen (ED2). I won't go into the details except to say it went back to Zen about 2 years ago and came back a little mangled but not repaired. It's dead, unusable. Since I had luckily won one of the Primes in that contest years back (remember that?), I said skip it, it's not worth the trouble to complain. Nobody's home anyway. The Prime is solid as a rock, mostly flat field (which I like), and frankly better than the ED2. I use it quite often.
But the experience has left me cautious about buying from upstarts. And I passed on that Bushnell Legend M megadeal because it's a variant of the ED2. Bushnell probably can't repair it either, but they have the resources to at least replace it if stuff goes wrong.
So many new companies! I think I'll let them sort themselves out while I walk off into the sunset with my Swaros. The Swaros will probably outlive me at any rate.
But the experience has left me cautious about buying from upstarts. And I passed on that Bushnell Legend M megadeal because it's a variant of the ED2. Bushnell probably can't repair it either, but they have the resources to at least replace it if stuff goes wrong.
So many new companies! I think I'll let them sort themselves out while I walk off into the sunset with my Swaros. The Swaros will probably outlive me at any rate.
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Interesting comment on the comparison to the Bushnell Legend M.
Are you suggesting that they are made by the same manufacturer, and if so do you have any solid data to support that, or are you just assuming since they both share an open hinge design?
NDhunter
Experienced observer
I will offer my thoughts. There are many variants of similar binoculars being
made today by many companies and sellers.
With those models, and clones, they could come from many different factories
throughout the world, including China.
The Bushnell Legend M, has good reviews, I have one, and I recommend it.
It is sold by Bushnell, so at this time it has a solid company backing its
warranty.
Jerry
black crow
Well-known member
Yeah that all went through my mind also. I think he could have been embarrassed/ashamed or something but I think his lack of trust in his customers understanding, were he to have come clean, might also have been because he never really was that decent of a guy in relation to his communicating so well with us, but rather was so nice because we were paying customers. That's the usual drill as far as my experience goes. They are your good friend until there's nothing more in it for them. We will likely never know but my cynical nature believes it's likely the latter. He really didn't want to deal with us anymore because there wasn't a monetary payoff. I think his actions speak for themselves. I never think of a person I do business with as a friend. It's just a little game that gets played.
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perterra
Well-known member
Pretty hard to judge what happened from a 40,000 foot view. Theres a lot of options besides embarrassed, lack of trust in his customers or just flat out trying to screw people when the money ran out. Was he sole owner or minor partner? Does he have the authority to actually make a promise for the company at this point? Did he leverage the company to get into production? Is the company and inventory in control of a lien holder, or does he still have complete control? Is he in the middle of a medical crisis?
From what I have seen on this forum, he would not be walking in to an understanding clientele who is willing to reason. There are many on here who would take it at face value, that some bad business choices were made and they got screwed, but just as many would accept nothing but a pound of flesh that ol Charles may not have to give. Most people wh run failing businesses think they can turn something around right up till the time they lose their ass, for all I know Charles was fighting to make it work but just hit the wall. I have been screwed over by some pretty good people for that reason. They thought they could turn it right up till it broke over the point of no return. Had he told me they were close to failure 6 months earlier, I would have cut their line of credit right then and demanded full payment of what was due or repossessed our welding equip, and pushed them in to failure. I didnt know and he didnt feel they could tell me, so I (my employer) lost about $50,000 and he lost about $500,000. Every single purchase is a bit of a gamble.
For what it's worth, there is a reason that many of the big boys charge the prices they do, besides just being greedy money grubbers. It's because they cant stay in business if they cant make enough profit to sustain them in times of crisis. You take a bit of a gamble when you buy from small players in anything, with luck the small ones hang in long enough to be big players,
I hope he can make it back, like Kammer I won a Prime and it's a hell of a good glass.
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I was just asking as I've handled both and they just don't have the same feel, Not in the hinge, focus wheel, or balance. The eyepiece end of the barrels are completely different as are the hinge assemblies.
I've noticed on some forums many folks think all open hinge bino's are rolling off the same assembly line or something.
Legend M's scored a 79.3% on the Allbinos test, ZR ED2 scored a 68.5%. Not even in the same league.
And yeah, the Legend M's are covered by the previous Bushnell "no questions asked" warranty, which simply couldn't be any better. Bushnell is one of the most established optics companies as well, so i too have no concerns.
Not trying to pump up the Legend M's into some kind of Alpha sniffer or anything, but they are a decent bino for sure.
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Steve,
Surely the second sentence here is an overstatement? "He introduced binoculars that started the trend of improvement in the upper mid tier. I do not think for a minute we would see things like the Zeiss Terra and Conquest, Nikon Monarch 7 and Monarch HG, the Vortex Razor, or the new Leica Trinovids without the push Zen Ray was involved in starting those few years ago." I believe that Nikon, say, would have got there anyway.
Kammerdeiner, Xlr8nx,
The Bushnell Legend-M is "clones with" the ED3, not the ED2.
Jape,
It may be "heartache, depression, insecurity" but possibly also the inability to cope with a deluge of communication. I wonder why Charles, or whoever there who now has/have the final say, has not arranged for a standard email or recorded phone response to all who contact them.
A few years ago I ordered an ED3 7x43, found problems with it, emailed and phoned Charles. He very kindly agreed to replace it with an 8x43. I am now not sure whether my complaints about the 7x43, of which I had really high expectations, were all valid, but he very courteously took it all. The logistics of the exchange between the US and a distant part of the planet are not easy, but he tolerated it all, and Z-R paid for part of the shipping.
I have been hoping that whatever has happened has not affected Charles too badly and he is well.
Surely the second sentence here is an overstatement? "He introduced binoculars that started the trend of improvement in the upper mid tier. I do not think for a minute we would see things like the Zeiss Terra and Conquest, Nikon Monarch 7 and Monarch HG, the Vortex Razor, or the new Leica Trinovids without the push Zen Ray was involved in starting those few years ago." I believe that Nikon, say, would have got there anyway.
Kammerdeiner, Xlr8nx,
The Bushnell Legend-M is "clones with" the ED3, not the ED2.
Jape,
It may be "heartache, depression, insecurity" but possibly also the inability to cope with a deluge of communication. I wonder why Charles, or whoever there who now has/have the final say, has not arranged for a standard email or recorded phone response to all who contact them.
A few years ago I ordered an ED3 7x43, found problems with it, emailed and phoned Charles. He very kindly agreed to replace it with an 8x43. I am now not sure whether my complaints about the 7x43, of which I had really high expectations, were all valid, but he very courteously took it all. The logistics of the exchange between the US and a distant part of the planet are not easy, but he tolerated it all, and Z-R paid for part of the shipping.
I have been hoping that whatever has happened has not affected Charles too badly and he is well.
