Maven B2 vs Nikon Prostaff 7s (1 Viewer)

No joke.

I was comparing bins at several stores and I couldn't help but notice that the prostaff 7s were the best value they had. They easily outperformed the pair of monarch 5 and X they had in stock, for 1/6 the price. Most bins I looked through were not worth commenting on. The Zeiss Terra were terrible in comparison. Not worthy of the name.

Once I stepped up to the Zeiss Victory HT and Swarovski SLC I finally noticed an improvement compared to the prostaff 7s. These bins definitely presented a better picture, but how much better I can't easily say. At first impression, definitely not more than $2000 better. I was left feeling like there is no reason to go with mid-range priced bins. They didn't seem to offer much of anything beyond the budget priced optics, and they definitely didn't touch the high end stuff.

I'm bothered by CA and noticed a very small amount in the prostaff 7s, it was definitely better controlled in the higher end bins but I couldn't test outside so the true performance is still unknown.

I didn't nitpick with edge sharpness, etc. This was a quick test to judge overall impressions.

I've recently discovered that the Maven B2 9x45 are the absolute best value for the money, and compare quite favorably to the alphas, for less than half the price. The problem is, I can't look through them before spending the cash.

I'm a bit of an optical perfectionist, and I was quite suprised by the quality of the prostaff 7s, in the store. CA especially bothers me so I wonder if it would be worse outside. I read reviews saying the Bushnell Legend Ultra HD are superior bins to the Prostaff 7s, for not much more money. I haven't been able to find them to see for myself, though.

I'm trying to determine if the Mavens are worth $850 more than the Nikon Prostaff 7s. The bins will be for general use, no specific focus on birding. I have a feeling that the prostaff 7s (if CA is decently controlled outdoors) might be all that I need, but I can't seem to shake this feeling that I should go with the mavens, the best I can afford, and have a quality bin for life. It's tough to justify the cost for just occasional use, however.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I should mention, I have tried and returned(not good enough optically):
-Sightron Blue Sky II
-Vixen Foresta Porro
-Zhumell Nova ED (these were nice for the price, but I returned them and now discontinued)
-Vanguard Endeavor ED
-Zen Ray ED3
-More that I can't remember right now

You have a number of interesting observations in your post that I confess I'm struggling to understand.

I've not seen any of the Monarch X series but I have compared the Prostaff 7, 8x42 and 10x42 against the Monarch 5 8x42, and had a quick look at the P7s 8x30s against the Monarch 7 equivalent. I rather liked the P7 10x42. Unlike the others it had a decent AFOV, was reasonably sharp and CA was fairly well controlled. Yes, quite good value, but to my eyes very much an entry level binocular with a simpler eyepiece configuaration, and poorer colour and contrast than the dielectric prism coatings of the Monarch 5 and some others on your list. The particular P7 10x42 I tried was sharp in the centre but the 8x42 was softer and perhaps more typical for the price level.

It's not surprising that we would have different opinions on certain models but still find it hard to understand how you would rate the P7 over the likes of the ZenRay, Vanguard or indeed the Sightron which you found "optically not good enough". Perhaps you could explain further what you aspects you found unsatisfactory?

Could it be that the in-store testing was the problem? It's quite likely the light levels were too low for optimum acuity and the lighting can sevely distort impresssions of colour, contrast and CA. Perhaps worth a second look in better light? If you still like it more than the other's you mention, you've saved yourself a lot of money.:t:

David

Maven will send you a demo pair of the B2s. You need to have the funds to pay for them available, but as long as you return them, they won't charge you for them.

I have not looked through the Prostaff 7s. I have looked through (and own) the Monarch 7s in 8x42 and the B2s in 9x45. The view through B2s is noticeably better than through the M7. My pair of M7s are actually a pretty nice pair of them, I don't have many of the issues I've seen others report, and while you can force CA to emerge, it's not a big deal.

I also have a pair of the 8x30 B3s. In my hands, the B3s are much closer in quality to the M7s than either is to the B2s. Some of this is ergonomics - for me, an 8x30 binocular is a binocular that I won't find as satisfying all other things being equal as a full size binocular. So the M7 gets a leg up there. Once the B3s are correctly lined up, and the viewing angle is keeping stray light from being a problem, the view is better than through the M7s, but if I had to keep only one of those two, I might well keep the m7 were it not for my eyesight, which gets worse each year - the B3s were made specifically for me, to allow a lot of focus past infinity. The m7s are at the end of their focus travel a lot of the time for me.

The B2s are in a whole different league, though. Most binoculars have some amount of glare as you look in the direction of sunrise or sunset. The B2s simply don't have that. It's like a magic trick (I suspect it's not magic, but rather the relatively long tubes are well-baffled.)

The depth of focus on them is remarkable - you can often improve focus as you pan, a bit, but your eye can simply compensating by changing its focus over a very broad range of depths.

With the B2s, both time and distance telescope in surprising ways. I'll see an animal a hundred or so feet out, and start to follow it. On more than one occasion, I've watched a hawk for just for a few seconds, then tried to hand my binoculars to my partner so she can get a look. But when I take the glass away from my eyes, I can no longer see the animal against the sky - without realizing it, I was watching it for scores of seconds and it was moving away at a very good clip the whole time. Watching it was such a pleasure, and focus so deep and smooth, that with only sky as a backdrop I simply lose track of the image scale.

I see CA but am not tremendously bothered by it. I gave away a pair of Vanguard EDs because they were bad for me in a lot of ways, with the CA only a piece of it. The M7s have much less CA than the Vanguards did. The B2s have either none or very, very little. I can remember trying to force CA to be evident and not succeeding at it. (Looking at power lines against a bright, cloudy sky.)

The M7 is very lightweight and has the best captive objective covers out there. The maven objective caps are not good. I put Butler Creek caps on mine and am fairly happy. I wound up with a somewhat loose set of them which I shimmed a bit to fit.

My one ginch with the Mavens is that they don't resist folks idly fiddling with them. Put a bunch of people in a vehicle, binos all closed but on a long trip and bored and the B2, at least, can wind up having the objective cell unscrewed and the nitrogen purge bleed out.

Most of the binos I know of have a shroud that covers the entire body. The Maven have a ring at the base of the objective cells and customizing the trim seems to mean they don't want to cover that ring in rubber.

I wish they'd offer that as an option, though. Idly fidget with the Maven objective cell, and it can start to unscrew - the armor over it is independent of that on the main body. Idly fidget with an objective cell on a bino that's fully covered, and nothing happens as the armor over the cell is continuous with that on the main body would.

Fortunately in my instance, the sound of the gas escaping was evident long before anyone had managed to actually open the glass and put their noise and the view is not affected. If they need to go for service, I'll have them re-purged as well.

Finally, the folks at maven as a company are a pleasure to work with. The free demo program is great (and if you particularly like the loaners, you can keep them at a discounted price.)

when I needed my B3s worked on, they sent me a spare pair. When I was unsatisfied with the performance of the first set of B2s they sent out, they researched it on their end and sent me a second pair.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jgraider View Post
SteveC, what's your take on this? Never heard of such a thing. Thanks.


I have no idea at all what he is getting at either. That is some other binocular than a Maven he is talking about. You'd need to be equipped with a good strap wrench and a dose of motivation to remove the objective rings on any of my Mavens. If you were ever able to get those off, then of course the customizable color rings will fall right off. However it will require some concerted effort to get there. Idly fiddling won't get there. Neither will idly fiddling ever vent the nitrogen gas used to purge the interior.

I have Bushwhacker covers on my 9x45. If you are really concerned about that, get black rings instead of colored ones, or just use the supplied tethered covers, or another OEM style of your choice.

I was asked the above in regard to the following in birourousta's above post.

"My one ginch with the Mavens is that they don't resist folks idly fiddling with them. Put a bunch of people in a vehicle, binos all closed but on a long trip and bored and the B2, at least, can wind up having the objective cell unscrewed and the nitrogen purge bleed out.

Most of the binos I know of have a shroud that covers the entire body. The Maven have a ring at the base of the objective cells and customizing the trim seems to mean they don't want to cover that ring in rubber.

I wish they'd offer that as an option, though. Idly fidget with the Maven objective cell, and it can start to unscrew - the armor over it is independent of that on the main body. Idly fidget with an objective cell on a bino that's fully covered, and nothing happens as the armor over the cell is continuous with that on the main body would.

Fortunately in my instance, the sound of the gas escaping was evident long before anyone had managed to actually open the glass and put their noise and the view is not affected. If they need to go for service, I'll have them re-purged as well."

To restate I have absolutely zero idea of what that is supposed to mean :eek!:

To the OP... I can't imagine the Prostaff standing up like you state they do. However I do agree with bridrousta's assessment of the B2 with the exception of the excerpt I quoted above.

Most of those on your list are in fact optically superior to the Prostaff. The Prostaff is OK if that is all you can spend. Otherwise go with any of the Maven's.

Hey,

Sounds like you are fairly price sensitive when it comes to binoculars. Generally, you get what you pay for... but some a little less and some a little more.... and then there are your personal preferences which will be something other than the next guy. I recall the "X" series and think it was a huge bust... with people thinking it was overpriced glass. It didn't stick around too long.

I'd suggest looking at the Monarch 7 not to be confused with the Prostaff 7. The monarch 7 offers fairly decent ergos, feels relatively well built, and has decent optics... without costing a whole bunch. And you can find them discounted from time to time.

CG

Nitrogen purge is not done under such pressure that one would be able to hear the gas escaping...

Pete

I will take a photo of what I am describing.

No strap wrench was in use - this was your basic idle fiddling, very much akin to how some folks will worry the label of a beer bottle. I am many things, but a burly fellow is not one of them and it was trivial for me to recreate it once we saw it happen the first time.

My partner and I both heard a sound as the objective cell turned.

If it was not a nitrogen purge bleeding out, that's great. Pressure audibly equalized, however.

I won't take video unless someone tells me they simply don't believe the photos. I used a little yellow sticky to tag the objective cell and body of the left side of my B2s. I then rotated the cell a few degrees. You can see the sticky displace, and I took a photo from above as well; that shows that it's not the rubber armor spinning, as you can see the gaps for the optical wrench have rotated as well. I highlighted those gaps so you can get an idea of the change in position. This is all handheld with a cell camera, so it's by no means in perfect registration.

This was by no means strap wrench force, this time or when it first happened.





The point about the armor I was making is this: because the objective cell cover, the ring at its base and the cover of the main body are three different pieces, it is possible to apply rotation to the objective cell without deforming the body cover.

The Nikon M7, by contrast, has a single, rather heavy sheet of rubber over the entire body. You'd essentially have to peel that back to be able to apply rotation to the objective independent of the body.

pete_gamby said:

Nitrogen purge is not done under such pressure that one would be able to hear the gas escaping...

Pete

Click to expand...

birdrousta did you happen to see this? I do not wish to be argumentative, but I don't buy what you are selling.

Idle fiddling will not accomplish what you describe. I can go hands on immediately with a 7x, 9x, and 11x 45 B2, three 8x30 B3, one 6x30 B3 and a 10x42 B1.The Very Bad Idea was tinkering with the objective in the first place.

I believe you see what you saw, just don't buy the idle fiddling. Something else is going on here.

Steve C said:

birdrousta did you happen to see this? I do not wish to be argumentative, but I don't buy what you are selling.

Idle fiddling will not accomplish what you describe. I can go hands on immediately with a 7x, 9x, and 11x 45 B2, three 8x30 B3, one 6x30 B3 and a 10x42 B1.The Very Bad Idea was tinkering with the objective in the first place.

I believe you see what you saw, just don't buy the idle fiddling. Something else is going on here.

Click to expand...

I did see Pete's note. And I don't know what we heard. I'm at this point half tempted to try giving the left barrel a twist with a mic on so we can all hear what my partner and I heard.

As far as what I am selling, I'm not selling anything. I'm stating our observations.

Apparently I need to say yet again that I'm glad I bought a pair. It's a very good binocular, better for me than the rightly legendary Nikon SE and very similar in view to it. That does not, however, mean that it is a perfect binocular, entirely without blemish or design shortcoming.

When the objective turned the first time, we were all in one room and no one was exerting a notable amount of force. No hand tools were in use. No sweating, grunting or straining was going on.

As the objective turned, we heard pressure equalize.

One thing to bear in mind - the binos that I carry are adjusted to a greater-than-standard overfocus.

Mechanically, I don't know how that is accomplished, but I have the impression that it is most like done by changing the length of the distance from the objective to the ocular.

It is possible that the change is being made on the objective end after coarse assembly, and so the binoculars I carry are mechanically a little less stout than others.

In any case, if you compare a fully wrapped, no joint bino armor to the bino armor covering the Mavens, the presence of three different elements covering the objective cell gives it greater mechanical freedom to rotate than you have on a binocular with a single, much larger sheet covering it entirely. There are two less joints, and the surface covering the cell is continuous with that covering the body.

An heirloom binocular - Maven's marking language - however, ought not be one that the heir might accidentally disassemble.

Birdrousta,

Do you mean that your Mavens focus further past infinity for you than the standard Mavens do?

I assume you had this done to correct for your myopia so you could use them without wearing glasses?

Bob

ceasar said:

Birdrousta,

Do you mean that your Mavens focus further past infinity for you than the standard Mavens do?

I assume you had this done to correct for your myopia so you could use them without wearing glasses?

Bob

Click to expand...

Yes, the folks at Maven have my pairs set to do 8 diopters of focus past infinity.

I don't know of many binoculars which have overfocus as a published spec these days, and when they do have it, it's not always met.

And as I say, I'm not sure where Maven is making the adjustment.

But I'm delighted to have found a vendor who'll do that.

birdrousta said:

Yes, the folks at Maven have my pairs set to do 8 diopters of focus past infinity.

I don't know of many binoculars which have overfocus as a published spec these days, and when they do have it, it's not always met.

And as I say, I'm not sure where Maven is making the adjustment.

But I'm delighted to have found a vendor who'll do that.

Click to expand...

I think it is worth inquiring whether doing this could have made moving the objective cells easier than they were before the work to increase the diopter range was done.

Bob

birdrousta

I did what I think you should have done and called Maven. In a normal B2 what you describe is impossible. Again, idle fiddling won't do what you illustrate.

There is indeed a separate objective cell assembly section in the B2. However this joint is some 2 inches behind the objective lens. It has the purpose of letting Kamakura change objective diameter in case another customer wants a similar binocular with different objective diameter. It is glued and torqued with the idea of making that joint permanent. The idea is to secure the internal integrity at that joint so nitrogen gas can't escape there. The ring where you show the movement with the two pieces of tape has no screw in type of joint. The joint is a couple of inches lower and if you were able to unscrew the assembly, the loosening would have to happen below the customizable objective ring. It is possible, however unlikely, that your binocular was neither glued nor torqued, but then the movement would be elsewhere than where you illustrate. Maven says that if that joint was compromised the gas would escape, but that (backing up Pete Gamby) that you would not have heard gas escape. In normal circumstances you would likely damage the binocular irreparably if you tried to undo that objective cell joint. That joint would not need to be unscrewed even for servicing.

So I repeat, idle fiddling will not do what you described. Again, I don't have the aim of starting an argument. I believe you saw what you saw, but I reiterate, something else is going on here.

I suppose the point here is, something is amiss. Call Maven, we went over your posted explanation and pictures over the phone. They will warranty the binocular. They are as curious as to what is wrong with the binocular as I am. They flatly stated this is a warranty issue and will be replaced.

As to ceasar's point about using the objective cell placement to adjust the focus past infinity, that is not done with the objective cell placement, but is done somehow with manipulation of the focus mechanism.

Steve, you went to a vendor, in essence on my behalf, without even PMing me first? As I've noted a surprising level of emotional investment in your responses to what I saw and heard - perhaps best captured (until just now) in your use of the phrase of "what you are selling" with reference to me, I realized that I did want to talk to Maven myself.

You, however, have stepped so far across the line of appropriate that I'm frankly stumped. Perhaps normally you live on that side of the line, but it doesn't seem that way to me from reading your posts.

I could have mentioned it to them directly earlier, but I see it as minor, and I knew they might want to see the binoculars for service. Frankly, I didn't want to give them up - I like them too much. However, Caesar's public suggestion was nudging me in that direction when Maven contacted me.

I suppose it's nice, at least, to see you telling me exactly who was driving that.

I will weigh my options now. I may decide to try opening the righthand cell. If I do that, I will also video and mic the test, as I've now had lots of folks tell me I didn't hear anything, and this will also be a chance to show that no, I am not using tools to do so. Mind you, I'm prepared not to have heard an N2 purge. I did, however, hear pressure equalizing.

birdrousta said:

Steve, you went to a vendor, in essence on my behalf, without even PMing me first? As I've noted a surprising level of emotional investment in your responses to what I saw and heard - perhaps best captured (until just now) in your use of the phrase of "what you are selling" with reference to me, I realized that I did want to talk to Maven myself.

You, however, have stepped so far across the line of appropriate that I'm frankly stumped. Perhaps normally you live on that side of the line, but it doesn't seem that way to me from reading your posts.

I could have mentioned it to them directly earlier, but I see it as minor, and I knew they might want to see the binoculars for service. Frankly, I didn't want to give them up - I like them too much. However, Caesar's public suggestion was nudging me in that direction when Maven contacted me.

I suppose it's nice, at least, to see you telling me exactly who was driving that.

I will weigh my options now. I may decide to try opening the righthand cell. If I do that, I will also video and mic the test, as I've now had lots of folks tell me I didn't hear anything, and this will also be a chance to show that no, I am not using tools to do so. Mind you, I'm prepared not to have heard an N2 purge. I did, however, hear pressure equalizing.

Click to expand...

Not choosing any sides in this, but you did state it would accidentally disassemble its self. So to that end, if it is posted on the net as that delicate, then I think there should be some clarification on on the issue.

I am kinda glad he checked with them, answered a question I had.

It probably wouldn't hurt to have a sub-forum for Maven binoculars now.

They have become more widely known and seem to be getting more popular with the public. It is hard to keep track of comments about them in this general binocular sub-forum. I believe there were two different threads here that dealt with this issue.

Bob

ceasar said:

It probably wouldn't hurt to have a sub-forum for Maven binoculars now.

They have become more widely known and seem to be getting more popular with the public. It is hard to keep track of comments about them in this general binocular sub-forum. I believe there were two different threads here that dealt with this issue.

Bob

Click to expand...

Bob:

A subforum for Maven, not needed yet. But it is time for Zen-ray to
be dropped, not much posted and they do not reply.

Steve, should chime in, as he has been involved in both.
I do like quality made Japanese optics, and these seem worth a consideration.

I suppose it is time to look at the stats, Hawke and RSPB, both slow going.

Jerry

birdrousta

I went to the vendor on my behalf. What you posted aroused my curiosity, nothing more. I said twice I believed what you say you saw. What you said you saw raised questions, so I sought some answers. Sorry if that offended you.

When you tell me you are not buying what I'm saying, and then tell me what I should do, and then come back around with this response, still without the courtesy of a PM, I am disappointed.

You are apparently emotionally invested in Maven to a point that this seemed ordinary and reasonable to you. My concern is about the effect that can have on frank discussion. It certainly makes me shy away from it.

I have asked the moderators to delete my account and all posts associated with it. Since I won't be here to discuss them further, it seems wrong to leave them up.

I suspect a deep breath and a pause, with thought not to react too severely nor with too much haste, might be recommended all around.

...Mike