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Message: <blockquote data-quote="spyglass" data-source="post: 1655742" data-attributes="member: 18470">The Chinee just reverse-engineer optics....and autos.....and everything else. Why spend time & $ when the r&d has already been done? What they can't get from that, greasing the palms here & there, a little industrial espionage along with it & presto....everything u need to produce whatever.....a lot cheaper. Ivan did it for years (and it was painfully obvious, especially in aircraft), and the bear & the panda were on fairly good terms for several yrs, and shared some info, remember? With the advent of the web, info on virtually anything is available.zNow I'm not saying they haven't the talent etc to do great things (in fact, they are the ones who developed glass lenses....Marco Polo brought that invention back from one of his trips, n'cest pas?). They just need to do everything in a big hurry to get in on the burgeoning markets for goods, ergo, copy. As an aside, I just got a Celeston Noble 10x42 on ebay for $125, unopend, and after remembering fine reviews on it, figured I'd see if it was that good. Now I've had some really fine binos from Alan Hale & Co (10x50 Nova, 10x42 Ultima, 9.5x44ED, et al) and assumed their stuff was still Japanese. The original Nobles were also, but the production shifted to China a few yrs ago before they discontinued their efforts to compete with the better brands & became a Tasco clone. I wasn't aware of this when I ordered. The bino is decidedly substandard optically, tho' it looks & feels good. Focus is eratic and it isn't sharp at all. So it'll be relegated to a glovebox unit and/or loaner.Ya wanna remember, all the US optics firms (Bushnell, Swift, Celestron, et al) except Leupold, are nothing but marketing & importing outfits, and they'll use the most economical suppliers (at least to begin with). I don't know much about Zen, Hawke, and the rest of the clones, but another thing to consider is resale, as there may come a time when ya wanna unload 'em....time will tell if they'll hold any value.</blockquote>

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