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Message: <blockquote data-quote="captain vallo" data-source="post: 1849070" data-attributes="member: 12753">As someone else states, its down to the likes of youI get very bored very easily, love bargains, love value for money and love having the best one can afford.  because of this, I have owned (and still retain) many binoculars.Right now, I have 3 pairs of helios (chinese and japanese), 2 pairs of old Swift (japanese), Bushnell elite (Japanese open bridge style) and new SwaroV EL's.I spent half a day going through focus optics range of mid to high end bins and can conclude one thing ... chinese stuff is till someway off and mid range japanese stuff is still not there. Im not going to bother with the reasons (built to spec, built to price, quality control, tolerances, materials etc ect) but the main issue is with variations of the same products. There are times when this will not matter to individual because of importance of the item or the effect or ones financial situation etc ect. On the other hand there is no way my new EL's are twice as good as my Bushnell Elites, but this is the case with absolutely all  things in life ... its called diminishing returns on investment. If one can easily afford it, or its the most important 'thing' in your life, then one should not have to justify buying the best. At the moment the best is still coming from Austria ;-) and by some margin.</blockquote>