Previous Gen Alpha "Mystique" (1 Viewer)

forent said:

Maybe.
A month ago I had the opportunity to compare my trusty Leica Trinovid 8x42 BA that I bought new in 1993 to the current Leica Trinovid 8x32 HD. OK, 42 is more than 32 but I expected the modern bino to be clearly superior. To my surprise, the opposite was true: the topic Trinovid 8x32 showed strong CAs and disturbing kidney beaning and the mechanics were not convincing in regard to its 25 years old predecessor. Of course there may be better contenders out there, maybe in the 500€ class. But I am pretty sure that a current Trinovid - a budget bino in the Leica lineup - still is no match for my old Trinovid that was an "alpha" in its time.

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Interesting point. I always found the old Trinovid to be breathtaking.

Despite having lower values for ER, brightness, etc.

chill6x6 said:

So all of these FLs are at least six years old and are a model removed from current. Literally still state of the art. I can't think of any sub $1000 binocular that will beat them let alone a $500 one.

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jgraider said:

I agree. Most any $500 glass nowadays has better optics than anything made 20+years ago.

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Hi Chill, JG (and the other gents who have weighed in) - thanks for bringing your experience to the table. I agree with Taxboy (post 72) - direct comparisons between former alphas and current second tier binoculars would be most interesting as those are the categories the (many) folks whose budget does not stretch to a current alpha will most likely be considering. If I visit the UK Birdfair this year I'll make a particular effort to check out the second tier class as well as, of course, any former alphas that may be at the marquee selling second-hand gear. I did look through the 8x42 Conquest HD which seemed optically very good indeed, and well built too. Image wise I'd say it is superior to my 10x40 P* Dialyt (value probably not more than 400 pounds sterling), but that's hardly surprising - it's binoculars that would cost roughly the same as the Conquest HD on the second-hand market (non-HD Ultravids, non-SV ELs, old FLs and so on) that they should be measured against.

Cheers,
Patudo