BirdForum is the net's largest birding community dedicated to wild birds and birding, and is absolutely FREE!

Register for an account to take part in lively discussions in the forum, post your pictures in the gallery and more.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="denco@comcast.n" data-source="post: 3180223" data-attributes="member: 25300">I sent an e-mail to Maven asking them if the B.3 8x30 was a rebadged Nikon Monarch 7 8x30 and this is the detailed response I received. I must say this company is impressing me."Hello Dennis-First off thanks for purchasing one of our binos. I think you'll be real happy with them. I recognized your email from the order you placed as I was the one that inspected them.As for your question, no they are not the the Nikon Monarch or the Kite binocular. There are some platform similarities in that we are all using a compact bridge assembly, something that our partner in Japan developed and is probably going to be showing up in many places ( much like when Swarovski introduced the open hinge concept and then everyone else also had one.) We use a different eyecup system and most importantly have a completely different optical spec. I would say that performance wise it would be more similar to the Kite model but superior to the Nikon which is notorious for its issues when looking towards the light. And, all of our optics are made in Japan.A few other items to note... we offer a lifetime no-fault warranty which neither of those brands do (don't get me started on the level of customer service you'll receive from Nikon). I don't have any experience with the Kite customer service, so I won't comment there, but I assure you that ours is second to none. And finally, we offer personalization on every model we sell which you won't find anywhere.Something that I'd like to ad as I've heard a similar question asked. I'm not sure what your definition of rebadged actually is. Hopefully I'm addressing what you mean by rebadging. But, you should know that what you might think is a simple inexpensive thing to do is not at all. Just the tooling costs for the cosmetic pieces (rubber armor, focus wheel, branding) on a compact binocular can be up around $50-$80K. Most companies aren't interested in only making a cosmetic change at that cost. And we are definitely not one of those companies.Our reason for starting our company was to give people the option of buying a premium quality binocular for a reasonable price with the personalization option being the icing on the cake. Shelling out $2500-3000 for a full size and $900-1000 for a compact was taking it out of reach of most consumers. We saw this happening in the optics market and knew we could do it, but only by selling direct. We think we've done the right thing.Sorry to be long winded but I've had this asked several times and think it's worth explaining. As a brand who only sells direct we rely on our customers to tell our story. We hope you'll be happy with your bino and that you'll share that with others.Thanks Dennis.>Brendon"</blockquote>

Verification