I've tried a number of Chinese bins, and QC is definitely an issue, though mostly in terms of mechanical problems rather than optical ones, which brings me to the second area that ChinBins are not yet up to snuff, and that's in mechanics.
I mentioned this on my original "Haute Chinese" thread on CN. The example I used was the Oberwerk 15x70, which sold for $149. The optics were quite decent for stargazing, but the mechanics were really cheap. The right diopter was off, it was supposed to have 4 diopters range, but I couldn't get it to focus, and when I turned it a bit further, the eyecup assembly came apart in my hands. Under the rubber eyecup covering I found a cardboard tube frame!
Also, like my first pair, the second 15x70 arrived out of collimation. The spring seated prism were easily knocked out of collimation. Oberwerk has an entire Webpage dedicated to teaching you how to collimate their binoculars, since they frequently need tweaking.
I purchased the original Obie 15x70 in 1999, and the 2003 model was improved optically, better coatings and less CA, but mechanically, they seemed to be the same. So that's why I called for Haute Chinese. They were already getting better optically, but mechanically, they left a lot to be desired. The newer heavy duty version 15x70 they sell is more robust, but it has IF EPs, so it's not that practical for terrestrial use.
Optically, I think China could produce an alpha killer, but mechanically, they have a long way to go. They need to use better materials, as Jan said, and have more robust construction to increase their quality.
Although said indelicately by dennis, China's focus is on turning out high volume goods. They have the manpower and the lower wages, so they can create giant assembly lines and knock out more bins in a month than the alphas could in a year. So what are they are the best at? Right now, they are the best at turning out volumes of whatever low cost consumer items people are buying, from toothpaste to electronics to optics.
No doubt, China and the Pacific Rim will have the corner on this market for years to come. However, as wages rise and more European and US companies make their goods in China, eventually, I think we will see better quality products and more niche market products.
While it's true that China's culture is different than Japan's, business is business. If a company wants to make higher quality goods, and it's too costly to make them in Europe and turn a good profit (it costs 15% more to make the same product in Europe than it does in the US because of the difference in energy costs - America's abundant natural gas is not tied to the world oil market like Russia's is, and that where most of Europe buys its natural gas from - Russia - and oil prices are also higher in Europe than in the US).
Add to the higher energy costs higher labor and material costs, and I'm surprised that we haven't seen the mass exodus of manufacturing in Europe the way we have in the US. Could be the governments have done a better job of keeping plants in Europe rather than incentivizing manufacturers to go offshore, as they have in the US.
So I think we will see the second step happen in China like we did in Japan where there was a change toward producing higher quality goods and niche market products, but due to the sheer manpower, I think mass market products will continue to dominate China's output.
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