Hi, Bob. Yes, I'm sure. The Leica Trinovid BA (not to be confused with the inferior Leitz BA which preceeded it) first appeared in 1990. It was the first phase coated roof prism binocular Leica ever made, and it's performance and build quality were unsurpassed at the time, and remains impressive even today. The 8x32 in particular is a gem, as Stephen Ingraham famously pointed out in his BetterViewDesired website. It was he who suggested the relatively inexpensive Nikon SE was virtually the equal of the much more expensive Trinovid, at least optically, but certainly not with respect to ergonomics or ruggedness. To suggest it was not until the Ultravid that Leica was able to equal the performance of the Nikon SE is simply incorrect. The Trinovid BA fully equalled the SE optically, and even surpassed the SE as a complete waterproof, fogproof, submersible instrument in a much smaller package, and with far superior eyecups and no image blackout issues. This is all well documented by reliable sources, and was confirmed by my many hours of testing and comparing them over the 5 year period I owned both. They are both very special binoculars, but in my opinion, the Leica Trinovid BA/BN are currently undervalued on a price/performance basis when compared to the SE.
Angelo,
I responded to this Sunday, June 30th at about 11AM Eastern time. Somehow it did not get posted along with another post I made to Odradek (see above) about how I handled blackouts in my SE.
I left to do other things and when I got back in the late afternoon the Bird Forum website was down and I could not access it until I tried it again this morning.
I don't want to rewrite the entire post again but I did attach a link from Better View Desired dated 1998 with a review of the Nikon 8 x 32 SE and a copy of Steve Ingrahams "needs" test where he ranked the Nikon above the Leica 8 x 32. I noted that it was Ingraham's BVD ratings which introduced me to Nikon SEs and EIIs. I also was influenced by an article Bill Cook wrote about that time on the 10 x 42 SE in "Sky and Telescope" I think. He praised it highly. This is how I became aware of the SEs. A year or so after this review and article came out I bought a Nikon 8 x 30 SE.
Most of the people who I saw using upscale binoculars at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary which I frequented often in those days were using Zeiss Dialyts. The rest were using varieties of porro prisms. I had picked up a Leitz 7 x 42 Trinovid BA Armored in the early 90's at a close out price which I used for years after that until about 1999/2000. I thought that they were good then and I still do but they were the largest of the Leitz Trinovids. The only one with 42mm objectives and they had a wide FOV and a large exit pupil which no doubt were beneficial. I never tried the other versions.
Here are the BVD reviews.
http://www.betterviewdesired.com/Nikon-Superior-E-8x32.php
There is really not a big difference as you can see.
He also had a 1993 review of the Leica 8 x 32. It was called the Leica Ultra then. And he thought at that time it was the best birding binocular.
http://www.betterviewdesired.com/Leica-Ultra-8X32.php
Bob